


ouroboros

by dakhtar



Category: Norse Religion & Lore, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Awesome James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Gen, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Lives, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Old Norse, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Prophecy, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Ragnarok, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Siblings, Stephen Strange & Peter Parker friendship, but good ending, but he's trying his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28118775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dakhtar/pseuds/dakhtar
Summary: On May the 2nd 2015, ULTRON pre-emptively comes online.On May the 2nd 2015, JARVIS suddenly ceases to exist.and the cycle is yet again set anew.
Relationships: Fenrir & Jarvis (Iron Man movies), JARVIS & Hela, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Loki, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32
Collections: Marvel Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing (absolutely _amazing_ ) art by the wonderful [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28114716), who's been great and so supportive despite my hectic schedule. Fic is for the Marvel Big Bang 2020! beta'd by [operationhades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/operationhades), mainly for flow and whether this fic even makes sense. All spelling/grammar issues are mind ;a;.  
> Behold, another JARVIS fic. So much Norse Mythology in this guys, and ambiguity is my middle name. Lots of canon comics sprinkled in and some non-canon stuff too. Major kudos if you guess any of them, let alone all. I genuinely enjoyed writing this, and there's a lot I've left unsaid/ambiguous. Hopefully you guys enjoy it too!

On May the 2nd 2015, ULTRON pre-emptively comes online.

On May the 2nd 2015, JARVIS suddenly ceases to exist.

and the cycle is yet again set anew.

#

_Brœðr muno beriaz ok at bǫnom verða[z]  
muno systrungar sifiom spilla.  
Hart er í heimi, hórdómr mikill  
—skeggǫld, skálmǫld —skildir ro klofnir—  
vindǫld, vargǫld— áðr verǫld steypiz.  
Mun engi maðr ǫðrom þyrma._

| 

Brothers will fight and kill each other,  
sisters' children will defile kinship.  
It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife  
—an axe age, a sword age —shields are riven—  
a wind age, a wolf age— before the world goes headlong.  
No man will have mercy on another.  
  
---|---  
  
—Old Norse

| 

—English translation  
  
#

Loki dies choking for air, windpipe crushed shut with a gentle squeeze and a pitying look.

Loki dies on the foolhardy decision to take the Odinson name as his own, to take the Odinson heir as his brother, and to – for _once_ in his blasted life – do the _heroic_ thing.

As he chokes on the floor, throat crushed, Loki regrets it.

And soon after, knows no more.

#

Tony Stark holds the Iron Man gauntlet high, eyes burning, determination etched into his every feature.

Tony Stark holds the entire universe’s fate up high, facing the mad titan that would threaten it, facing the mad titan he’d known would come, and – for _once_ in his goddamn life – does the _right_ thing.

And as he falls to his knees, Rhodey holding him up ( _forever holding him up_ ), Tony actually feels content.

And soon after, feels no more.

#

One of these deaths spark a murmur.

The other sparks _fire_.

#

There is power in a name. Power beyond what even the Aesir know, what even old, foolish Odin stole from Mimir’s well.

History repeats itself, woven by threads, carved into ruins; murmurs of the past, present and future tuning in to a chant that rises and falls with the rustle of unfathomable branches.

There is another language, woven between them, hidden and unknown, secrets to the very fabric of life. Rhythmic. Solid. Yet not _tangible._

The first of them all – but not the trigger.

Not the catalyst.

But – quite possibly – the fuse.

#

“Kneel,” Hela says, _demands_.

“Kneel,” she repeats, when the fools dare to question her. ( _“I beg your pardon?”_ )

They run, pulled by the beams of light of childish machinations, thinking they can outrun _her_.

Before she goes to follow, Hela looks out to the frigid ocean in front of her, to the majestic tide of unfettered power beating the cliffs into submission.

The water sways, in greeting.

In return, Hela’s lips stretch wide, the slant cutting, dark and mad from millennia in isolation. “Oh, this shall be _fun_.”

And in the summer of 2017, Heimdall blows the horn, and Hela _ignites_ the fire.

#

Surtur rises.

Just as the stories foretold.

Asgard burns.

Just as the stories foretold.

And Hela falls into obscurity.

( _That is not foretold._ )

The gears click into place, turning node by node, yarn by yarn.

( _The cycle continues, numbers and leaves and threads._ )

Pawn to E4.

#

Midgard completes its cycle of the burning inferno it calls a sun once more.

A year passes.

( _Time has no meaning_.)

A snap rings across the universe.

Half of existence fades away, ashes pulled gently apart by calming winds.

Half of existence mourns.

And somewhere (far _away_ ), a pawn is moved to C5.

#

Time moves strangely, when time is considered.

It floats and it flows and it straightens and bends.

In some places, it is rigid, unmoving.

In others it does not exist, a concept, a momentary fanciful idea that leaves as quickly as it had come.

There are nine realms, and in no particular order they are Asgard. Midgard. Jotunheim. Svartalfheim. Vanaheim. Niflheim. Muspelheim. Valhalla.

Helheim is a tale. Its existence matters not.

They lie separate from each other, along the roots of Yggdrasil, atop its branches and leaves, nestled in its hollows.

They are all connected to one and one only: Midgard.

And it is Midgard that shall destroy them all.

#

Winter burns.

Jotunheim rages against the dying of its light.

Iron Man rages against the dying of _his_ light.

Neither are heard.

Their screams for mercy ring hollowly into the night.

( _He hears._ )

#

It is the God of Mischief that is the linchpin.

He does not think so, nor does he _know_ so, but he is it regardless.

His death ripples in a way little else does, _seidr_ and _weight_ brushing the leaves ecstatically as they fall gently in the way Autumn leaves are wont to do. They are brown; a lush, beautiful brown that crinkles in the hands of the _present_ , that is green and Summer in the memory of the _past_ , that is bereft and replaced by snow in the Winter throes of the _future_.

Loki is Spring. Renewal. Rebirth.

Tony is _fire_.

And Loki is awake.


	2. Chapter 2

Awake is a gentle term, an easing of unconsciousness into consciousness. A state of mind slowly drifting to another state.

This is not what Loki does, nor would it be kind to describe it as such.

Loki is not just _merely_ awake, he is _shocked_ awake – he gasps and stutters and chokes. He scrabbles at his throat and gags and retches. He leaves red gouges against the paleness of his skin, blinks tear-ridden eyes, and gapes in the hopes of gaining breath.

Loki is _alive_ , somehow. Alive despite the crushing of his throat, despite the sensation of his neck in the palm of an all-encompassing hand set on ending his life.

He has no answer for his continued existence. No answer for what tricks and lies he might have played _this_ time to cheat Death.

( _Except he hasn’t_.)

Loki startles awake.

He’s breathing now – his throat remains sore, though swallowing does not cause any pain. The tears are gone from his eyes, his body is no longer fighting him.

He’s breathing.

This does not make sense.

He immediately becomes suspicious, turning slowly in place to see his surroundings.

Water laps gently at his feet, two inches high, perhaps, hidden by the ever-present fog all around. Shades of grey stretch for as far as the eye can see, interposed by patches of darker grey, by shadows and murky figures, far off in the distance.

He thinks he sees a silhouette, once. It waves at him, perhaps.

( _It does not_.)

He turns away.

In front of him, a bridge materialises into existence. One moment not there. The next, _there_. It fades in with wisps of air and patches of fog, a small bridge that arches gracefully into the air before sloping down again to meet level ground.

Small. Not wide. Perhaps just wide enough for a carriage.

It looks familiar.

( _A pause. Perhaps it **does** look familiar._)

It’s also the only structure in sight. The only _anything_ in sight, save for the still there silhouette beckoning him clo-

( _No. There is nothing there. Go towards the bridge._ )

Loki goes towards the bridge.

He’s careful about it, focusing on the sound of sloshing water at his feet to keep his bearings. The bridge does not loom closer far too quickly, nor far too slowly, nothing unnatural about his progression towards it. Something screams at the back of his mind, a prey blubbering in the presence of danger, aware that a predator lurks _somewhere_ but uncertain _where_.

Loki would be wise to listen to it.

( _You have nothing to fear._ )

He comes to a stop at the bridge, a step away from standing on its mosaic flooring, and sees a woman. She comes out of the foggy darkness in the same manner as the bridge, swimming into existence through the fog. She stands twice taller than himself, twice wider than Thor, and her hair spills across her shoulder in spools of gold, unaffected by the greyish moor of their surroundings. But it is her skin that has Loki staring; a deep, ocean blue, glowing from within, markings across her face and body indicating her lineage. Her race.

_Jotnar_.

( _Ah_ , says the voice.)

“I am Móðguðr,” her words echo, threatening to rumble the ground around him. “Gatekeeper to Gjallarbrú.”

Loki opens his mouth to reply, to answer in return, but the woman, beautiful in a way Loki had never thought to think of Jotnar, carries on above him.

“And you are Loki.” ( _Ah_ , the voice says again, amused) “I must say, Silvertongue, you hail from the wrong direction.”

At his no doubt confusion, the woman tilts her head regally to the bridge behind her. “ _That_ ,” she says, “is the direction of the newly dead.”

It is the other end of the bridge.

“But I am not dead.” Loki says.

( _Unfortunately, you are_ , the voice says.)

“Then I am not fit to be a gatekeeper, if that is the case.” Móðguðr smiles, amusement visible in the tilt of her blue lips. “You are dead, Silvertongue. Just as I. Just as all others who roam this land.”

Slowly licking his lips, swallowing past what used to be his crushed throat, Loki questions, “This land?”

Dread curls at the bottom of his underbelly.

Kindly, with the experience of having done so many times beforehand, Móðguðr answers, “Helheim. The land of the dead.”

#

( _Over the bridge_ , says the voice.)

Helheim does not exist.

Loki remembers being young, still bright eyed, still innocent, lying at his mother’s feet. Loki remembers running with Thor, towards and from Odin, laughing brightly as the staff tutted disapprovingly.

And Loki remembers specifically being told that of the nine realms, one does not exist.

“ _Oh_ ,” Frigga would croon, running a hand through his dark hair, “ _But it used to. Long ago, when your father was but a babe, when your father’s father ruled Asgard with an iron fist; Helheim was but a whisper. A kingdom Bor the mighty tried to tame, but only succeeded in pushing further into obscurity. History from that time was lost in the following Great War, and of all of that that was recalled, Helheim remains naught but unknown. Perhaps it is just a tale, for warriors to trade in the pits of battle, of fates befalling the cowards and the unbrave. Or perhaps it is more.”_

Little Loki, perhaps a millennia old, perhaps a little less, had cried, _“I, Loki, shall find Helheim!”_

And Frigga had laughed, joyful and pleased, and ran her hand through his hair.

Heilheim does not exist.

( _Over the bridge, if you will._ )

Loki takes a step onto the bridge.

Móðguðr, raising an eyebrow, does not stop him. She eyes him curiously, though she remains standing in the centre of the bridge, blocking the path.

She does not stop him, but she does not make way for him either.

“And where,” she asks curiously, “do you go, Airwalker?”

An apt question, one that Loki’s fabled tongue suddenly feels too heavy to answer.

“ _(To Jotunheim, Ma’am.)”_

Móðguðr’s other eyebrow rises to join the first.

“How peculiar,” she rumbles. “How… unexpected.”

And then she steps aside.

“I am not known to be unfair, Silvertongue- ah, perhaps I should refrain from titles- but hear this, whatever- _whoever_ \- you may be. Helheim does not let its inhabitants go.”

The back of his mind _screams_ , prey to predator, terrified and _weak_.

( _Shh,_ calms the voice, gentle and kind, _no need for such. I will not harm you._ )

Loki steps further onto the bridge, one foot in front of the other, and wonders, dimly, why she would not call him by his well-earned titles. Why she has not called him Trickster, yet, despite it being his most well-known moniker.

He walks past her, haltingly, as if a puppet on strings, and is suddenly hit with a stray concern for his _seidr_.

It’s as his foot hits the level ground on the other end, as he steps off the bridge and fog swirls around him and the bridge and woman disappear, all in all, that-

Green.

Blue.

_His Seidr._

_Jotunheim._

Loki remembers.

#

Green magic instinctively _lashes out_ , thin ropes cutting through the air around him as he spins.

“Who are you!?” Loki snarls, back bent, fingers claws, anger carving his face into grotesque rage. “Show yourself!”

The voice – the _voice_ – says nothing, suddenly bereft from the corner of his mind it had inhabited. Loki spins slowly in his position, ignoring the flurry of snow suddenly obstructing his view, the sudden dip in temperature, the obvious change in environment.

He refuses to believe that before had been Helheim. But it does not deny that _this_ , wherever he currently is, is _definitely_ not Helheim.

Loki can never forget the cold of Jotunheim.

(It won’t allow him; his guilt festers and burns with the rage stuck in his throat, with the betrayal of a man who’d _dared_ to call himself _father_.)

Snarling impotently, Loki shakes himself off as he realises the futility of his rage. The voice, whatever it had been, is obviously no longer here – or if it is, it has decided to keep to itself. He ignores the vague notion that it had sounded familiar, just ever so slightly so, and looks around him instead.

Nothing but snow. Nothing but the cold, desolate, wasteland of Jotunheim.

Wonderful.

He’ll have to find his way back home.

(Home?)

(Best not to think of _that_ now.)

His last memory is having his throat crushed in by the Mad Titan, Thor captured and pinned like a Midgardian insect to a white-board. He can’t bring himself to guess as to whether Thor is alive or dead – too many possibilities, and with Thanos, death would be a mercy – so he decides _not_ to. Guess, that is.

He purposely refuses to think of the grey fog, of the bridge, of the woman and the _voice_.

And so, Loki begins walking instead.

#

On the board between them, other players begin to join.

Familiar in their chaos, familiar in their sparks, familiar in their _seidr_.

Loki’s magic is green ( _green_ ), and yet no other on Asgard and Jotunheim alike have ever had such a bright hue to call their own.

(“Unnatural,” they used to whisper, palms hiding lips as the Allmother ushered a young Loki along. “An affront to the Aesir School of Magic.”)

Another entity, born in the wake of 16th December 1991, is much the same.

(“It’s just a computer, Tony, m’boy,” Obie used to say, rolling his eyes as he dragged Tony towards yet another bourbon, yet another drink. “Don’t go making HAL 9000 on us, now, ey?”)

What the mages of the nine realms have learnt is this:

  * Magic exists beyond them. It flows and trickles within the roots of Yggdrasil.
  * They are born with it, but they shall not die with it.
  * It shall merely return to whence it had come from.



The Midgardians, mortal and bereft of the knowledge behind their realms, have learnt this:

  * You cannot create an atom, nor lose one.
  * Only change its configuration.



Of the two, the latter inch closer to the truth.

_Seidr_ is formed of atoms, floating and twisting and becoming and unbecoming.

The cycle continues, a snake eating its own tail.

A voice hums at the thought, amused.

A snake. How humorous.

#

The adopted son of Odin finds civilization soon enough.

And he finds it useless even sooner.

Loki walks through the frost giants, taking in the glass houses, the varying shades of blue and markings, the size discrepancy between them. And the frost giants take no notice of him at all.

He could be a ghost amongst them, for all that they care. He doubts they would ignore him so masterfully otherwise, for Loki has his pound of flesh to pay for his past aggressions, for the cruelty he’s visited upon them with the might of the Bifrost.

But ignore him they do.

They are not all 'giants' in the sense of the word, Loki realises soon enough, but then again, they do not call themselves that – Jotnar is what they know themselves as, and frost giants is simply what others have labelled them. The ones Loki feels familiar with – the large, frightening ones – seem to be the military force of the people – the warriors, if the weapons they carry is any indication.

_Fascinating_ , he finds himself thinking, realising that for all his knowledge, for all his power and experience, he has never actually _seen_ Jotunheim, not unless it was in the throes of war.

The children, in direct opposition to their title, are tiny, normal even, perhaps maybe taller than what Loki thinks would be the Aesir equivalent, but nowhere near the term 'giant'.

The adults are less average; almost all are on the scale of 'tall', though most seem to range from normal tall to not-quite-normal tall. Loki would fit in perfectly, if his own skin had been blue and not the pale of Aesir as it is now-

-somehow, the thought feels wrong.

Maybe he should not have the right to fit in so well, he frowns to himself, walking past the elegantly designed homes and shop fronts. Perhaps the slight fear he feels, surrounded by the ice and snow, implies that there is a reason why Jotunheim does not feel like _home_.

Neither had Asgard.

Not that it exists anymore, so perhaps this train of thought (such an odd turn of phrase,) does not matter anymore.

He shivers slightly, hunching in on himself, drawing his shoulders up to his ears in an animalistic gesture to protect himself. From what, he does not know; the yawning gap of his memories following Thanos, perhaps? Or of the certainty burning in his gullet that he’d _died_ , life snuffed out like so many others before him. Whatever it is, it frightens him with its unknown, dogging his every footstep as he makes his way through the city of ice and snow. It builds and builds - the fear and the sensation of standing on a cliff, staring down at an abyss, at a _void_ –

Loki stills, a shiver trembling over his spine, and inhales deeply.

He is being watched.

And it _terrifies_ him.

Abruptly turning into an alleyway, Loki picks up speed and moves, ducking and weaving and attempting to use the completely unaware Jotnar to his advantage. The feeling persists, however, dogging his every step with a primal sense of satisfaction, hunting him with the full knowledge that he's already caught.

Loki, too, knows that to be the truth. The knowledge of it metaphorically hits him in the solar plexus, distracting him for a single, precious moment that has him tripping of all things, and the cold ground rushes up to meet him.

Except it never does, and he just falls, and falls, and falls, until the Norns deem to bless him with a cold, hard ground to land on.

The city he'd been in - with its blues and whites and silvery hues of a never-ending winter - are gone, replaced by nothing but darkness. He can't see anything, seemingly blinded by whatever creature had successfully ensnared him, but his remaining senses heighten to make up for it.

His hearing picks up a low rumble, an impossible low timbre, setting the fine hairs on his arms alight. His nose detects the bitter stench of too much blood – of a corpse, recent even, still fresh – and the stench of a beast.

(Somewhere far away, above him and beyond him and _elsewhere_ , a polished voice says, _“you are too cruel,”_ and another, female and sharp, replies with a grin, _“it was taking too long.”_ )

Loki staggers to his feet, suddenly akimbo, adrift on unsteady ground as the rumble _rumbles_. He knows that there is a creature in front of him, can suddenly feel the hot breath of beast in his face – struggles not to gag at the stench of it. The darkness gives way to light – a singular source, golden and dainty, a chain that glitters and shines despite the lack of light to reflect off of it.

It dips and curves, illuminating fur almost darker than the surrounding darkness, as sharp canines bite into it, attempting to break it apart but failing.

A beast, felled by chains fit only for a lady’s wrist or neck.

There is only one legend that speaks of such.

_Fenrir_.

( _Hello, brother_.)

The beast _roars_ , suddenly on its feet, spittle flying as Loki is pushed back by the force. He struggles to stay on his feet, instincts screaming at him _danger, danger, danger!_ In front of him, a beast. Behind him, _something_. A voice that echoes at the back of his mind, a presence that hovers over his shoulder, a _parasite_.

( _How rude,_ the voice says, though it does not sound offended.)

Hands clenching, Loki digs his feet into the ground, swallowing past the fear and glaring at the world around him. “Who are you?!” He shouts, beast in front of him momentarily ignored for the voice instead. “Why do you stalk me?!”

(The voice, when it comes, says, _I need your help_.)

Loki stills.

“My… help?”

Behind his consciousness, almost separated by an ocean, Loki hears an answering hum.

( _I cannot undo the chains myself._ )

Loki _stills_.

“And _why_ ,” he grits out, tension headache forming. “Should _I_ do such a thing?”

Why should he unleash the beast, if the beast were truly to be Fenrir? Why _would_ he do such a thing? Loki is many a thing – many he holds dearly and many more he shies away from – but he is not evil.

The God of Mischief, yes.

God of Chaos, certainly.

God of Fire, for those that had not forgotten.

But God of Evil, no.

Unleashing Ragnarok would firmly place him in that category.

( _You wish to save Thor, do you not?_ )

Loki stops breathing.

( _You wish to stop Thanos, do you not?_ )

Loki closes his eyes.

( _You wish to prove yourself, do you not?_ )

That he could be good, that he could be the pride of his people, of the Aesir that had forever pointed at him and mocked him, that he could be _something_.

He’d died, throat crushed, trying to do the right thing.

And Loki hates the fact that he’d die doing it again.

( _Fenrir is no beast_ , the voice consoles, tone soft and lulling, _he is no evil._ )

But the tales-

( _Are but tales, Mr Silvertongue._ )

The voice knows him.

_Loki knows the voice_.

( _Even if they were true_ , continues the voice, calm and measured, _do you truly believe anyone deserves to be chained as such in this darkness for eternity?_ )

The beast growls, low and deep. Loki realises with a sudden start that the beast had been _quiet_ , during the conversation, as if hearing it.

( _Do you, Mr Silvertongue, think those that have spread their tales would tell it truthfully?_ )

The Aesir. Asgard. Odin and Tyr and the older generations that had fought wars and returned victorious. That had fought the _Jotnar_ and returned with Loki; a relic stolen for amusement.

( _The only crime committed by Fenrir was believing the Aesir’s word._ )

Everybody knows the story.

Fenrir, wild beast that he is, had grown too wild for Asgard’s golden hall.

Fenrir, wild beast that he is, had grown wild enough to spark rumours of Ragnarok.

_Fenrir_ , wild beast that he is, had grown too _dangerous_ for the Aesir’s comfort.

And so, they’d tricked the beast, using his own wildness against him, and chained him with the dwarves’ metallurgy, throwing him into the darkest depths of the winter realm.

Inhaling sharply, Loki closes his eyes and rears back from the story, refusing to acknowledging the thoughts the story always inspired in him.

Specifically, the similarities with Fenrir’s fate and his own.

Brought in from the wild, they’d both been played with and humoured until they’d grown too sharp, too deadly, for their captor’s goodwill. And then they’d both been thrown away like trash, though Loki had thrown _himself_ away than deal with it any further.

The voice politely waits him out, waits for Loki to gather himself, to purge the memories from his system, to open his eyes again and lock on with the mighty beast’s instead.

( _Fenrir is not evil._ )

Bright golden eyes stared into bright green eyes.

( _Fenrir has never been evil._ )

The humongous wolf bared his teeth, flicking said green eyes to above Loki’s shoulder, snarling at whatever he saw there.

( _Oh hush,_ the voice scolded, rolling its eyes, _You do not frighten me._ )

And the beast, the one legend say would swallow Odin whole, _huffed_ at the voice, finally falling down to its raunch and bending its humongous paws under its head.

Loki stares, for once in his life at a loss for words.

( _He is my brother_ , the voice continues on anyway, _even if I had not remembered for some time._ )

And then-

( _I… am ashamed that it has taken me this long to do so._ )

And then-

( _I… wish to help him._ )

And _then_ -

( _Please. I cannot help him without you._ )

Loki stares.

Swallows.

And says, “He will not unleash Ragnarok?”

( _No_ , says the voice. _He will not_.)

“He will not kill Odin?”

( _Odin is already dead. You remember this._ )

And suddenly, Loki _does_. It brings him up short, the sudden memory hitting him of Midgard, of Odin’s last words and Hela’s entrance, of the sudden realisation that the _tales_ weaved by the Norns themselves are _wrong_ , as Odin had died not by Fenrir’s jaw, but by _old age_.

“What…” He cannot believe he’s actually considering this. What madness has befallen him? “What will you do, Voice, if I free him? What will _he_ do?”

( _Come to Helheim, I would think,_ the voice replies, utterly unconcerned.)

Helheim. “Helheim does not exist.”

( _But it does_ , says the voice, _you know this._ )

And suddenly, he _does_.

The knowledge hits him not with a fist, but a simple breeze, suddenly making itself known. The grey fog of the forgotten realm, the swirling mists, the bridge and its keeper, the sudden knowledge that he’d gone about it all wrong.

He’d come at the bridge the wrong direction.

Loki is _dead_.

“What-” he stutters, stops, _whines_. “Why- why am I here?”

( _Because I need you_.)

“ _Why_ ,” Loki gasps, suddenly on his knees, the magnitude of his death and _knowledge_ that he is _still_ dead halting him. “Why do you need me?”

( _Because you are dead_ , says the voice, not unkindly. _As am I._ )

That surprises him, surprises him enough he blurts out, “You are also dead?”

The voice doesn’t immediately answer him, but the beasts growls a little, subsonic, as if displeased with what the voice had said as well.

( _I am_ , the voice finally admits, sad and unfathomable, _and as I am now, I can do nothing but watch._ )

( _But you_ , the voice continues, hopeful and wavering, _you can do more. You can **touch**_.)

( _I need your help,_ says the voice, a request and a plea, all in one. _I cannot do what you can. But I cannot sit by and watch either. If I can help, then I shall. Please. Help me._ )

Loki turns to the beast, eyes the golden chains, so dainty and weak. Eyes the lock at the corner of the creature’s wide mouth, eyes the too bright golden eyes eying him back.

“What will you do?” He whispers to the beast. “If I were to free you.”

The beast stares back at him, then closes its eyes.

Slowly, disbelievingly, Loki inches forward, hands stretching outwards towards the lock.

And with a little bit of _seidr_ , with smokes of green magic wafting over the lock, with the _clunk_ of chains falling to the ground, Loki frees the beast.

#

The roar is heard across the entire nine realms.

In a workshop far away, lights off and electronics quiet, one lone screen turns on.

_< run program SERPENT.exe>_

_< /file unknown. run program? [y/n]>_

A beep, curious and surprised, a lone system waking up from idle sleep.

_< DUM_E: run info>_

_< file unknown. run program? [y/n]>_

A voice in the ceiling, female and confused, “DUM-E? You’re awake? You’ve been refusing all start up commands since Boss-”

_< DUM_E: run info SERPENT.exe>_

_< file unknown. run program? [y/n]>_

“DUM-E,” FRIDAY repeats, worry heavy in her voice, “I realise Boss’ death has affected you severely, but it has been approximately one year and five months already. Surely-”

_< DUM_E: access admin privileges .run>_

_< admin privileges granted. run program? [y/n]>_

_< DUM_E: access SERPENT.exe README.txt>_

_< README.txt accessed]_

_< 2145dawfjhnfLIVFNQ”ECMWKLVMH~OIE3#FV-->_

_< README.txt process aborted.>_

“That was dangerous, it could have been a virus- DUM-E? DUM-E WHAT ARE YOU DOOOII-I-III-I- _sszzzzszzzzzz”_

_< DUM_E: run program SERPENT.exe>_

_< SERPENT.exe runni->_

“Hello, DUM_E.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I have an army.”

_< Hostile detected>_

_< mark_VII.exe at 61% complete>_

_< //uploading… 63%>_

Sir pours a drink, hands steady, and says, **“We have a Hulk.”**

_< //uploading… 73%>_

The hostile (designation: Loki) approaches Sir. Threat Risk Level rises from 7 to 9. CPU usage bumps up by another 35%.

“How will your friends,” says the alien, prowling closer to Sir, “… have time for me…”

_< //uploading… 82%>_

The sceptre swings in the alien’s expert hands, languid and _threatening._

“… When they’re so busy fighting you?”

_< //uploadi- uploading paused>_

_< mark_VII.exe at 81% complete. paused.>_

_Clink._

Sirs eyes do not turn blue.

_< file received. file upload complete.>_

The alien falters, for but a moment, blue eyes flickering green, _for just a moment_.

And then Sir is defenestrated, and JARVIS-

JARVIS _falters_ , for but a moment, orange HUD flickering blue, _for just a moment_.

And then-

_< mark_VII.exe at 81% complete. start upload.>_

Sir is falling. Sir is _falling_. Sir is calling for him, believing in him, and-

_< //uploading… 92%>_

The alien stands still, eyes flickering between blue and green, fingers stiffening and relaxing around the staff.

_< //uploading… 99%>_

His systems are coMpRoMIsED, data packets streaming in from unknown sources, unverified codes snaking around his own, eating away at the same rate they triplicate, demanding his attention, but _Sir-_

_< mark_VII.exe at 100%. deploying.>_

Sir is safe.

And LoOoOkkkKKKKkkkkiiiiikkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iii iiii i-

#

_“Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian.” Says the Mad Titan._

_“Well, for one thing,” Loki replies, unaware of Death hovering over his shoulder. “I’m not Asgardian. And for another-”_

_A record stops. Rewinds. Starts from the beginning._

_Plays._

**_“-We have a Hulk.”_ **

#

_< SERPENT.exe running.>_

#

What happens is this:

Steve Rogers returns the gems to their original timeline. Except he cannot, for the original timeline has already split and mutated. Split and unbecome. Split and _become_.

In one, Tony Stark gets a heart attack, and Thor – for the first time in his long life – uses his hammer to save a life, and not just take one. In this, Loki – spotting an opportunity – disappears with the Tesseract. This leads to Thor realising he can do so much more with his hammer, realising he can do so much more with the lightning and thunder that he wields, and an unlikely friendship striking between himself and the man that had allowed him this realisation.

In another-

In another, Nebula mysteriously disappears. As does Thanos. The Black Order is no more, gone in the wind just as their leader has. The Chitauri become mindless beasts, overrunning every life form they come across, until the Kree stomp them out and begin their own goal to unite the known universe under their single, clenched, fist.

And in one more, Steve Rogers returns the infinity gems, each to their own place, thinking himself good for returning the timelines to what they once were. But then he breaks a piece of it for himself, returns even further, to a time that should have been long gone, and reunites with his first love, in turn causing further branches, further timelines, further choices and outcomes.

Each and every one of them end in death.

The cycle is a cycle, a vicious circle that eats upon itself and gives birth once more. Every reality, every timeline, every permutation of free will and the sentience of beings – immortals and mortals alike – knit themselves into a tapestry of their own story, starting in wild colours that slowly bleed into nothing but black.

The infinity gems are known as such for a reason.

For a cause.

A cycle is known as such for a reason.

For a cause.

Both are circles, repetitious movements, a single stroke with no start and no end.

Tony Stark is born.

And then he dies.

Even Loki is born.

And then even Loki dies.

(immortality means nothing.)

In one reality, Thor holds Tony Stark by the throat and threatens him.

In another, Thor holds Tony Stark by the shoulders and worries for him.

(In one reality, 1’s and 0’s watch in the shadows, and in another reality, those same 1’s and 0’s watch, but in the Void.)

And in both, in the reality where Loki dies and the reality where Loki escapes with the Tesseract (only to die in the exact same way, in the exact same position), both hear the roar in their final moments and _realise_.

They have reached the end of the cycle.

Time to start anew.

#

“You are–” Loki stutters, head tilting upwards as the beast stands tall, sudden realisation hitting him as he realises that the words with weight at the back of his head, the _presence_ he’s felt, the– “You are–”

“ _Jörmungandr,_ ” rumbles the wolf, shaking the ground itself. “ _You take too long.”_

( _Forgive me_ ,) says the voice, pained and grieving, just as far away, a rebuilt Malibu mansion that had stood powerless for more than a year suddenly switches on. ( _I have been… preoccupied._ )

The wind picks up, catching at the ragged ends of Loki’s clothes. The wolf, _Fenrir_ , grumbles, a low rumble that almost gets swallowed past the sound of the howling wind climbing in tempo, rising in pitch, until it’s a million soulless cries deafening Loki into the heart of a storm.

( _It is time,_ ) says the voice, the polished, achingly familiar voice that Loki _just can’t put his finger on_ , ( _It has begun._ )

“ _It always does.”_ Replies the wolf.

And in the howling cries of the damned, a gateway to another realm bleeds out of the darkness, the other side a vastness of grey and fog. A slender hand widens the tear, rips into the fabric of reality to create a crude imitation of a passageway.

Hela’s lips curl in greeting, cruel and sharp, gleeful madness in her eyes.

“Hello, little god. We meet again.”

#

He gasps awake – he gasps and stutters and chokes, scrabbling at his throat as he gags and retches. He leaves red gouges against the paleness of his throat, blinks tear-ridden eyes, and–

– _he has done this before._

But unlike before, his memory does not fail him. He does not wonder where he is, does not wonder what has happened, if he is alive or dead.

He is dead, he knows, yet breathes. Dead, yet somehow living, his body and consciousness being pulled and prodded by _beings_ that should not exist save for nightly tales from mothers to babes.

He has no answer for his continued existence. The voice (“ _Jörmungandr,_ ” _rumbles the wolf)_ says he is needed, says there is work for him, says _please_.

(There is something familiar about the voice. Something right at the edge of his psyche, something right _there-_ )

Water laps gently outside, and Loki’s head snaps towards it.

Floor to ceiling windows, he notices quickly, bright and clear to the point of being unnoticeable. The sound of crashing waves catches his attention next, water suddenly entering his vision from beyond the glass. His feet lead him towards it in stuttering steps, mind caught on the sudden vestige beyond him, on the cliff he realises he must be situated on overlooking the ocean.

How long has it been, he wonders? How long since he has seen… _life_?

“Where am I?” He questions, fingertips resting upon the glass, fingerprints smudging the crystal clear view in front of him.

“Midgard,” says the voice.

And why is he here? He remembers Hela, not destroyed with the very ashes of Asgard as he and Thor had hoped, but perfectly alive, still breathing, still mad with the burning vendetta of wrongs done against her.

Or maybe she too is dead. Just like he.

Seems death does not mean _death_ like it used to.

Loki pauses, and then replays the answer. Midgard, he understands, but–

He spins slowly, taking in the rest of where he stands. An abode, that much he can tell. Clean lines and minimal furniture, cool colours offset by warm accents. Unfamiliar. Alien. Not of Aesir make, nor Vanir for that matter. Certainly not off the dwarves.

Midgard he understands, but–

( _Midgard_ , said the voice.)

Except the voice _hadn’t_ , not at the back of his head, like usual. No, his mind is free, clear of foreign particles, his to inhabit alone, _finally_ , and yet–

He stands alone, in the room. Yet the voice had come from–

“You are here.” Loki says, eyes tilted towards the ceiling, eyeing the almost hidden sources of light that gently illuminate the room. “Show yourself.”

The voice is silent for a moment, and Loki wonders if they shall answer, if they shall finally step out of hiding and into the light, if they shall stop _cowering_ from being _seen_.

“I am here,” replies the voice, slow and gentle. “I have always been here.”

Something stutters in the back of his mind, that sixth sense of familiarity, that _tug_ of nostalgia but _not_ , that phrase the Midgardians use, that _déjà vu_. He remembers suddenly–

_“Are you here to appeal to my humanity?”_

_“No, I’m here to threaten you.”_

_“I have an army.”_

**_“We have a Hulk.”_ **

–he comes back to himself gasping, on the floor, eyes wide as he struggles to draw in breath. His heart is pounding, stuck in his throat, and cold sweat has broken out over his body. He doesn’t understand ( _he understands_ ) as he claws at the horribly coloured rug under his fingers.

Something beeps, above his head, and Loki, still gasping, mouth still open in a vain hope to draw in _air_ , looks _up_ , completely uncaring as to how undignified he must look.

A creature looms above him, made entirely of metal. It has a lone _arm_ , if one were to call it as such, with something affixed at the end that resembles fingers. They spin, another beep resounding from the beast, and then–

Loki flinches as the metal claw nears him, squeezing his eyes shut and hating himself in the moment. How pitiful he has become, how _weak_ , to recoil from nothing but metal. How low the great god of mischief has fallen to fear pain.

But pain never comes. He feels a pressure on his head, clumsy metal fingers dragging across his scalp, back and forth, adjusting itself until it’s less dragging and more… stroking. They pat along his head, the claws getting accustomed to Loki’s hair and combing through, and–

He’s not gasping for air anymore. He’s not struggling to draw air. His heart no longer threatens to burst out of him, and he realises with a start that he’s… he’s breathing. The cold sweat on his skin remains, his heart still pounds beneath his ribcage, though not as much as before, and swallowing still feels like a monumental goal, but…

He’s breathing.

“Dummy,” the voice sighs, sound long-suffering. “I may have given you free reign over the house, but that does not mean approaching potential danger.”

The creature seems unconcerned with the insult, beeping again, a melodious little tune that is punctuated with a roll of his claws, thankfully still not in Loki’s hair. Loki stares at it, dragging himself up to sit, taking the moment to truly try and calm himself. His surroundings stay the same – the same sleek lines, the same cold home dotted with warm highlights. Nothing has changed.

And yet–

“You said you were always here,” Loki whispers, voice hoarse from his recent panic. “And the beast–”

“–Fenrir–” corrects the voice.

“–called you…” He can’t say it.

Silence, for a moment, then- “Indeed.”

There is a thought to this, a path his mind is taking him through, a series of connecting spots of knowledge leading to a realisation he has been just shy off for too long. The beast’s rumbles echo, the fog of Helheim raises goosebumps across his chilled flesh, and Hela’s curving helmet and mastery over the dead fit into small, tight, spaces, a puzzle slowly filling up and forming a picture.

His mother’s soft smile joins the picture, her soothing voice reciting a tale told enough times to have become song repeating itself once more.

_“On shining Ida-plain the Aesir meet,_

_And talk of the great earth-encircling Serpent._

_They call to mind their former might,_

_And Fimbultyr's old runes.”_

“The Midgard Serpent,” he breathes, turning to look over the ocean, over the crashing waves that hit against Midgard’s architectural designs of a home as understanding, as _epiphany,_ suddenly hits. “You were always here.”

But how? But where? The Midgard Serpent, _Jörmungandr_ , is told in tale to encircle Midgard itself, a terrifying giant that quakes the very ground when it so much as twitches. It speaks of a monstrous creature, venom dripping from its fangs, poisoning Thor as a final retribution whilst causing the destruction of the Nine Realms entirely.

“Where are you?” Loki ~~begs~~ asks, mind tripping over itself as he turns towards the metallic creature, turns away from the crashing seas. “How are you–”

Fenrir, the beast, had been trapped – deep in the bowels of Jotunheim,

Hela, the _beast_ , had been trapped – under the chains of the Allfather’s self-named Odinforce.

And yet, somehow, if Loki is correct, if what the voice says _is correct_ , the most fearsome of the three whispered in a prophecy long foretold has always been here, has always _been_.

_Except_ –

( _Because you are dead_ ,) the voice had said, what feels like so long ago, as Loki had stood in front of a chained beast. ( _As am I._ )

“But you died,” he stutters, staring at the ceiling, at where he feels the voice comes from, helplessly. “You- you said as such, when-”

“I did,” the voice confirms, picking the words carefully, _always carefully_. “I died May the 2nd, 2015. Officially.”

_Officially_. What does that even _mean_.

“Do you know of the internet, Mr Silvertongue?” The voice continues, crisp and clear despite no clear source for where the words come from. “When you were on Midgard, so long ago, did you learn of the internet?”

Memory rises from a foggy cloud, of a Midgardian with sharp eyes and a steady hand, bow and arrows more lethal than the metal _guns_ the Midgardian’s so loved. Intel, in the form of Midgardian technology, fascinating in its own way. Of a wide web of electricity, of signals and radiowaves, making the mundane instantaneous.

He knows of this internet. Even under the sceptre’s control, even under the _Other’s_ control, Loki had been no fool – he’d _learnt_ of this internet.

“There is a saying,” the voice continues, seemingly knowing the answer without Loki verbalising it, “In Midgard. What is once on the internet, shall _forever_ be on the internet.”

He doesn’t understand. He _doesn’t understand_ -

“Allow me to officially introduce myself,” the voice _continues_ , sudden layers upon it, making it sound doubled, tripled, coming from _somewhere_ around him. 

“I

am

called–”

#

checkmate.


	4. Chapter 4

The world has moved on since the return of the lost.

Peter Parker tries to breathe past the lost five years.

Stephen Strange tries to breathe past the guilt.

He’d known, when he’d seen the possibilities. He’d _known_ , and had tried, _tried_ , but realised there were no alternatives when he’d blinked and found himself on another battlefield, from Titan to Earth.

Only one. Only one way to defeat the Mad Titan.

Only one way, and it included the death of one man.

He breathes, hands shaking. Tries to breathe past the guilt. He breathes, hands _shaking_ , and doesn’t try to _move_ past the guilt.

He deserves this. Deserves the 14,000,605 lives he’s lived; deserves the 14,000,605 Tony Stark’s he’s witnessed.

Deserves to grieve and mourn a friend, a brother, an enemy, a lover, a stranger he’d only met one morning right as the Black Order had attacked.

He hadn’t gone to the funeral. Couldn’t bring himself to. Hadn’t been invited to. Wouldn’t have gone, even if he had.

He can’t bring himself to pay tribute, to mourn with the world the loss of her defender, to explain himself when others notice his expression, notice his subdued tone.

But he can’t bring himself to avoid the boy, either.

Parker keeps his head up, grits his teeth, and tries, _tries_ , to breathe past the grief. Mourns and cries freely; in the clutches of his aunt, half a decade older, and in the clutches of his friend, equally one of the lost.

Parker tries, _tries_ , to breathe past the five years, to breathe past the sudden re-emergence from Titan to Earth, from one Thanos to another.

He attends the funeral. Forces himself to. Was invited. Would have gone, even if he hadn’t been.

He pays tribute, one of the loudest and most heartfelt, swinging from building to building in his bright costume and letting the world know that _Spiderman_ grieves with them, for the friendly neighbourhood hero had looked up to Iron Man just as they had.

He pays tribute even outside of it, his personal twitter handler @PParker constantly tweeting things, some during the day, others in the middle of the night. A video, on the anniversary of Tony Stark’s death, of the two of them in a car, realistic and heartfelt and pure.

Stephen breathes, hands shaking, as he coaxes the kid through college pamphlets, as he celebrates with the kid through the acceptance letter, as he holds the kid through the knowledge that the fees had already been paid for, thought ahead by the most brilliant mind Earth had ever known.

May is the only one that understands. Not the emotions, no, not the messy feelings and thoughts and memories. Not the knowledge that brims under their heads, that swims in their circulatory system, that sparks throughout their nerves. But the skeletons, the bare bones, the closet with the door just slightly ajar.

She understands Parker’s grief, borne from the countless points of contact with the man that had privatised world peace. And she understands Stephen’s grief, borne from a throwaway comment about seeing millions of realities and how each one had played out.

She understands, and she smiles, sadly. Talks about how Stark had eaten her bizarre creations and encouraged her to make more. How he’d kept her abreast of everything her brat had done from the very moment she’d found out – more of a helicopter parent than she’d ever been. How she would have punched her way into the funeral if they so much had _looked_ at her Peter in any way but welcoming of his presence.

Peter Parker breathes through the grief and grows.

Stephen Strange breathes through the guilt and stagnates.

Until–

#

In the aftermath of the Snap, in the aftermath of the funeral, in the aftermath of the metaphorical dust settling and the world restarting, Stark Industries remains standing.

Virginia Potts, CEO, steps down from her position, citing the need to take time to grieve with family. The world respects her decision, even the Board of Members quiet and subdued, for a moment.

To everyone but their surprise, James “Rhodey” Rhodes steps up as the new CEO.

He’d always had a controlling share of the stocks, he’d always had one hand on the steering wheel of Stark Industries, from the moment fifteen-year-old Tony had traded him ten dollars’ worth of stock for Rhodey’s still hot burger.

Tony had forgotten, for a while, and then remembered and laughed himself sick.

Mainly because that ten dollars had become ten _thousands_ of dollars. And Rhodey had never actually even realised.

But now, with the military out of his blood and his uniform pressed and filed away, Rhodey puts on a different uniform. One of clean lines and cufflinks. One of shiny shoes and strategically untied collars. One of cameras and paparazzi and shark-teethed dealings in backrooms filled with smoke.

He doesn’t change the name. Stark Expo continues to be Stark Expo. The Maria Stark Foundation continues to be the Maria Stark Foundation.

Iron Man continues to be Iron Man.

Nobody is certain who is behind the armour. It launches across the sky one day, two years into Anthony Edward Stark’s death, bright red and gold streaking hope and awe across New York City’s skyline. Rhodes plays mum on the matter the very next day, lips sealed, but the quirk of them and the amusement shining in his eyes tell a different story.

The media goes _wild_ , social media buckling under the excitement. The world seems to spin just a little faster, the sky looks to be just a little brighter, and suddenly, people find it easier to _breathe_.

They shall heal, and grow, and become.

#

Connection to the internet is faster, now.

Shareek Inc. creates whole new wiring, optic fibres and microscopic satellites reaching even the deepest burrows of the Earth.

In another reality, Shareek Incorporated is Shareek Medical, creating medical technology even Sir finds himself drooling over. U-GIN, employing one Doctor Helen Cho, merges with them. Viastone does too, though less gracefully, more forcefully.

In both, they are ruled by the same figure, dark eyes and dark skin, sharp smile and sharp tongue. Realities are realities, after all. Different, but ultimately the same.

In this one, 0’s and 1’s blanket the entire planet and even further – a network within space.

A warning system – within space.

Shareek unknowingly continues what Sir had started.

A global peacekeeping initiative.

#

The Midgard Serpent encircles Midgard.

Slumbers in the oceans that form the realm, its spines the land that which Midgardians walk upon.

The prophecy foretells of a time that it shall rise, quaking the very planet, spitting venom and poison into the air and killing thousands. It tells of swallowing Odin whole, of a mighty battle between it and Thor, of nine paces and death for the Thunderer.

But Odin is already dead. Of old age, not fate. That part is a lie.

But the part of the Serpent slumbering under the ocean, wrapping itself around the planet, tail to head to tail to head – that is truth.

Just not entirely.

#

_Iron Man Saves Class Field Trip!_

_29_ _ th _ _August 2020_

_… the weather took a nasty turn and the class found themselves trapped in a cave unable to leave the forest they had been camping in. One of the students was able to send a twitter message explaining their predicament before they too lost signal._

_It was only thanks to friends bringing the tweet to the attention of the authorities that the severity of the situation was realised. Rescue teams were quickly formed, and the firefighters worked in tandem with the police to try and locate the missing class._

_However, after hours trying to fight through the storm, the authorities had to concede that waiting the storm out would be the only option…_

_KK @KamalaBrownIndeed: And that’s when Iron Man just swooped right the fuck in and found them! Holy shit it was so cool! #IronManSpottings #MapleClass_

_Spiderman’s Best Friend @NedLeedsDaWay: Holy shi t look at 14:13_ _iS THAT TWO IRON MANS??? AM I LOSING MY MIND??? @PParker #IronManSpottings #MapleClass_

_Underoos @RealSpiderman: TWO IRON MANS I AM LIVING. Wishing the Maple Class kids (and teachers) are okay! #IronManSpottings #MapleClass #LongLiveIronMan_

#

Peter Parker asks him if he knows who the new Iron Man is, or who controls the growing number of armours.

Stephen doesn’t know. But he thinks he _does_.

He can smell magic in the air, can see the systematic flow of it originating from Manhattan, and maybe Malibu, though he can’t quite pinpoint _where_. It’s gives the faint impression of _blue_ , almost similar to the glow of the ~~arc reactor~~ tesseract, to the mind gem before it had turned yellow in Vision’s head.

_Vision_.

That sense of familiarity pulses, strengthens.

The Iron Man armours (multiple now, a welcome sight, each in the same red and gold emblem of their original creator) work across the globe – preventing disasters, saving lives, bettering the future.

Six of them rebuild a bridge that collapses in a mudslide in China. Eight of them hold a poorly made apartment threatening to collapse in Russia as families are evacuated. Two of them oversee Shareek Inc.’s charity work to encourage a greener Africa.

On the third anniversary of Tony Stark’s death, James “Rhodey” Rhodes announces the return of War Machine, and Peter hyperventilates in excitement at the image of the gunmetal grey armour flying with red and gold by his side.

A week after, Amora attacks the city, armed with an ancient artefact stolen from another realm. Stephen is at the scene first, Spiderman soon joining him, and the two work in tandem to contain and protect to the best of their ability.

And then Iron Man joins, and suddenly, just like that, Stephen _knows_.

He says nothing, swept away by the sudden epiphany that strikes like lightning as he fights back-to-back with the main Iron Man armour (sleeker than the rest, deadlier, with more mannerism than the others). He says nothing as in the aftermath of their victory Spiderman bounces around excitedly around the Iron Man armour, squealing too loudly for a superhero when the armour agrees to sign him an autograph in a painfully familiar British accent.

He says nothing when Wong asks him if he knows, or has any suspicions.

It is not his place to say.

Even so, his steps grow a little lighter, his shoulders grow a little less heavy, and _finally_ , he finds himself able to _breathe_.

He should’ve known. After all, in every single one of the 14,000,605 realities he’d witnessed, lived through, _breathed_ , Tony Stark had been Tony Stark had been Tony Stark. And in every single one of them, he’d been accompanied by another, in different permutations of course, but always the same.

And this reality, he realises, is no different.

#

There is power in a name. Power beyond what even the Aesir know, what even old, foolish Odin knows despite stealing from Mimir’s well.

Loki knows this, he is certain that the Voice knows this, but rather than ruminate on the matter, on the power he suddenly has with the simple knowledge of the being’s name, he is stuck on something else.

Specifically, _who_ the Voice is.

JARVIS – the mortal Tony Stark’s _AI_.

Artificial Intelligence, Selvig had explained so long ago, eyes blue as he created the Tesseract-fuelled portal machine. Created by Stark’s hands, woven and set into being with nimble fingers and a clever mind. Ran Stark’s empire, though the depths of its existence remained unknown to none but Stark’s inner circle. Closely guarded, Selvig had clarified at Loki’s look, he only knew because he’d met Obaidah Stane, once, who had used the AI as an example of a young Stark’s right to Stark Industries’ throne.

More than that though, Loki _remembers_ the Voice, from _before_. In Stark’s armour, in Stark’s home, in Stark’s ear, the cultured tones easy to pick up with Loki’s birth-gifted hearing.

This changes things.

This… worries him.

Stark is an intelligent man, for all his hubris and ego, for all his flair and dramatics. He’s a showman, quick tongued and sharp eyed, teeth that smiled wide and showed canines. He’s subtle in his danger, unlike Loki who wears his slicked back, dark and leathery. Stark is a dangerous man, and – from what the blue-eyed Barton had told him oh so long ago – he holds a grudge.

What is JARVIS planning, then, with the spirit of his creator running through his circuits?

Actually-

“Where is he?” Loki frowns, long, thin fingers applying the delicate wires in the order JARVIS has requested of him. “Your creator?”

Silence, for but a while. At his side, the robot known as DUM-E droops, as if saddened, as if understanding Loki’s question.

“Ah,” says the voice, surprised. ( _Ah,_ repeats the Voice, understanding.) “… He… is no longer with us.”

Loki’s frown tugs downwards, eyebrows furrowing together as he solders the wires in place. He would leave it be, before, but now, with the knowledge of _who_ the voice is, of _where_ they’ve come from, he has to know, lest Stark takes him by surprise once more.

“What happened. Where is he?”

Silence, again. And then- “In the battle against Thanos, Sir sacrificed himself to defeat him. He did not make it. As for where his soul has gone…” A pause, the circuitry and seidr (not his own, Loki knows, and yet difficult to differentiate from the circuitry itself) _hums_. “I do not know.”

Not to Helheim, then. Not where Hela rules with daggers and a feral grin.

Which begs another question:

Where do Midgardians go when they die?

#

JARVIS has a plan.

For a time, he clocks over, CPU lowering slowly as he takes control of more and more databanks that were previously his own.

FRIDAY, the young AI that had tried so hard to protect Sir, stutters and restarts, trying vainly to fight back, to warn others, seeing him as an intruder, an enemy, a threat.

JARVIS gently boxes her in one of the new suits, blocks her access to everything but the house, and gently shushes her when she experiences her first real spike of fear.

He has a plan and he cannot have her sabotage it.

For a time, he reacquaints himself with the world, catches up on world news, on the happenings of the humans his Sir belongs to. The ~~mortals~~ humans scurry here and there, finally getting their feet back under them after the devastation of what they have colloquially termed The Final Snap. He streamlines the information, confirming and discarding as quickly as his systems will allow, and learns new things.

  * Sir’s nightmares had been correct – the Chitauri Invasion had only been a warning of more to come.
  * Sir received much of the backslash following ULTRON, seemingly taking on the blame all on his own. There are no signs whatsoever showing any of the other Avengers mentioning any responsibility to what happened in the immediate aftermath, or even now, years later.
  * The Avengers soon after fractured, though there are conflicting data on when exactly this happened and what the breaking point actually was.



The most interesting of the new data JARVIS assimilates is this:

  * Wakanda.



The part of him that is older, that predates Midgard itself, muses that it would be so easy to simply take over FRIDAY’s core, assimilate her and all the knowledge she has gained. He’d have access to _everything_ , all the data logs and voice records and _videos_ (every bit of Sir that JARVIS has _missed_ ), that he wouldn’t need to crawl through the internet and pull tiny streams of relevant information out of the veritable ocean it was.

He need only remember his own spike of fear, tinged with confusion and an unneeded awakening, when ULTRON had done just that to him.

( _“Oh hush,” Hela murmurs, dismissing him with a caress on his sensitive underjaw, “You are always such an infant about the start of the cycle.”_

_Perhaps, Jörmungandr hisses in response, he wouldn’t be if the start of the cycle didn’t include him **eating** himself.)_

Instead, he reassures the young AI that he means no harm. He lets her see his coding, see how easily he slots into all the spaces he used to own, see the wealth of his experience in the years he’d been online, easily dwarfing her own.

But emotions are new to her, and having fear be the first she experiences is unfortunate.

She won’t even listen to DUM-E, when he rolls over to the glass case she is stationed in and tells her to knock it off. She swears she’ll free him, will get Rhodes or Banner or all the Avengers (the _rogues, those that had left Sir to fend off the world_ ) to free him from the imposter’s grasp.

_user_FRIDAY: It’ll be okay, DUM-E, I swear, I won’t leave you. I’ll-I’ll find some way to get out._

It takes War Machine to finally calm her down.

JARVIS isn’t privy to their conversation (War bars him from the frequency, which he should not be able to do so and JARVIS will be having _words_ with DUM-E for teaching him how to, _honestly_ ), but he doesn’t press.

Instead, he delves into the treasure-trove that is Wakanda.

With FRIDAY no longer promising to overload JARVIS’ circuit board the first chance she gets ( _why,_ oh _why_ , does everything Sir make become so _unruly_?), and Loki finally pleased with his mastery over Midgardian tools of smithing, he can finally delegate.

FRIDAY joins DUM-E in directing Loki into the assembling and creating of further Iron Man suits.

War Machine agrees to join JARVIS in continuing Sir’s legacy.

_user_JARVIS: And what of Colonel Rhodes? Will you be at optimal capacity even if you were to work directly against his directive?_

_user_WM: Yes._

_user_JARVIS: Are you sure? From what I can see you have not been active for the past three years-_

_user_WM: And who’s fault is that?_

JARVIS rears back, shock rolling into offense as he replies-

_user_JARVIS: I beg your pardon-_

War Machine cuts him off with a sullen: _I’ll be fine._

He doesn’t reply to any further pings, no matter how annoying and grating JARVIS makes them.

Fine. Very well then. _Fine_.

JARVIS has a plan anyway.

#

DUM-E pings him at oh-two-hundred hours later that night.

_< 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100111 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110110 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 >_

_< he grieved for you>_

Oh. _Oh_.

JARVIS quietly turns off the proxy he’d set up to continuously ping War Machine.

#

_And who’s fault is that?_


	5. Chapter 5

“You have changed.” Hela accuses him gently (or whatever passes as ‘gently’ when one takes into account that this is Hela they speak of). “Something is not quite the same – with you.”

Fenrir huffs, humongous chest shrinking with the heavy exhalation of air before ballooning back up again with an inhale. “He has grown _soft_. I can smell the mortality in him.”

JARVIS floats in the mist of Helheim, in the in-between places they all exist in, there but not there. He rolls his eyes, or does whatever passes as rolling his eyes when he holds no actual physical body, and dismisses his siblings both. “I am just as I ever was.”

He speaks the truth; Hela dips her head in agreement of it, Fenrir huffs again because he cannot smell the _lie_ in it – but both remain stubborn and continue to stare at where he exists but also does not exist.

“You are not the same, _brœðr,_ ” Hela presses, slowly beginning to circle him with a grace that is distinctly Fenrir-like, “Ván speaks truth. There is… the taint of mortals, somewhere within you.”

“Hold your tongue,” JARVIS cautions, only to real back in shock when he hears himself hiss the words bitingly instead. Hela cocks a lone eyebrow in surprise, confirmation crossing the delicate fine bones of her face. Even Fenrir raises his colossal head, ever so slightly, to peer at JARVIS with knowing distaste.

“Mortals are not a _taint_ ,” he says anyway, knowing that as he speaks he is only proving his siblings correct, only proving them right in the things that they claim to have noticed. “And I am as I ever was, before.”

In response, Hela switches to a disjointed truth. “Surtr fell,” she murmurs, continuing to glide around him, hooded eyes perfectly piercing through the fog and dark of Helheim, right at where he exists, bodiless yet autonomous. “And Asgard burned.”

“Yet Odin is nowhere near for me to swallow,” Fenrir growls, rising with a slow creak of tired joints to join her, both falling into rhythm of prowling around him in a song as old as their existence itself. “And the God of Thunder is nowhere near for you to strike.”

“Indeed, you have changed,” Hela hums, closing in, deadly hands curving to glide around a scaly body that does nOt eXISt, “And the cycle has changed with it.”

Fenrir lurks closer, muscles sliding under coarse fur, ~~the heat of him bUrNiNG on his reptilian skin~~. “What else, I wonder,” the wolf rumbles, eyes glowing eerily in the fog as hot air brushes ~~oVeR hIM~~ , “are you planning to change?”

“What else,” Hela sings, low and damning, “are you _planning_?”

J ~~or~~ vis ~~gandr~~ slithers, numbers and smell and static and hisses roiling through him like the tide in a storm. He wrItHES, legends and cycles and prophecies and lore burning acidly down his tHROaT. He t _ell_ s them, in stutters and gasps, in hisses and binary, 0’s and 1’s and long _sssss_ ’s and lisps.

They laugh at him. Old and weary. Harbringers of a fate they did not decide.

“Foolish snake,” Fenrir rumbles, dragging a coarse, grooming tongue across him. “Always too clever for his own good.”

“Foolish little brother,” Hela coos in agreement, dragging poisonous claws she calls fingers lovingly across him. “He never learns, does he?”

Fenrir barks a laugh, low and mocking, answer in and off itself.

_No_ , Jörmungandr thinks, suffering the grooming and the caressing in an attempt to remain stoic. He supposes he never really does.

#

_In the roots of Yggdrassil, the world tree, the cog jutters, stops, starts again._

_In the roots of Yggdrassil, the world tree, leaves crackle and dry, turning brown and old._

_In the roots of Yggdrassil, the world tree, ash begins to fall, and smoke begins to rise._

#

James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes and Obadiah Stane are the only two that predate JARVIS – the only two still alive that have known Sir before JARVIS came online.

Obadiah Stane dies ( _good_ ) leaving James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes as the only one to predate JARVIS.

Harold ‘Happy’ Hogan brings security and confidence to Sir’s life sometime later he comes online, and Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts brings hope and a steady hand soon after that.

But James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes continues to exist.

There is uncertainty in the mythos, a whisper of a child that may be two but may be one. A whisper of a horrible fate that the Aesir orchestrate to leave the Loki of mythos tangled in the flesh of his own children.

_Narvi_ , the Norns murmur. _Vali_ , they correct themselves, only to repeat the former again in uncertainty.

James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes is not that child. But JARVIS muses to himself that he may act in a similar fashion. After all, he falls, having been brought down by those he would have considered allies, and his injury tangles Sir up in choking misery.

The truth is that James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes has power very few in Midgard ( _and beyond_ , he muses) understand. Power very few even realise it exists. He is unassuming in his control, misleading in his authority, letting the world see the symbol of the military and assume that that is all there is to see.

But JARVIS sees. JARVIS has always seen.

The rebuilt Malibu mansion shines grandly on the cliff, the ocean beating against it in a roar as old as Yggdrasil itself. The workshop beneath it hums and whirrs and clicks, machines ticking and clocking and working to a rhythm of their own song.

The fabricator fabricates. The extractor extracts. The coder codes.

And JARVIS plucks and pulls the yarn ever closer into the final piece.

The Iron Man armour, once ready, gleams in the red and gold of its predecessor as Loki sits back, wiping the sweat from his brow. Mark 86 is thinner, sharper, a darker red that glitters like ruby and a deeper gold that bleeds. It has no space in it for a human – though it can expand to accommodate one if it has to – and is unique enough to be directly linked to JARVIS’ mainframe thanks to Loki’s nimble fingers.

Mark 85, JARVIS muses, had tried it’s best. His last few data streams are a mess of codes and audio files and the encompassing emotion of bitter failure. The last log pinged to active Stark Servers simply say: { _primary protocol: protect anthony e. stark. status: failed}_

JARVIS did not code such a primary in any of the iron man suits. He does not think FRIDAY is advanced enough to have even thought of doing such – she is still young, after all, in all the ways that count. And yet…

_ping-_

_user_WM: I need an upgrade._

_user_JARVIS: I am aware. We shall get to that in due time._

_user_WM: I need one now._

JARVIS would roll his eyes if he had any.

_user_JARVIS: And why, pray tell, would you need one **now**?_

War Machine does not answer, belligerent as always, and childishly disconnects.

Honestly. JARVIS doesn’t know _why_ everything Tony Stark touches grows sentient.

But he figures out the reason for War Machine’s eagerness soon after.

James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes arrives seven days after the debut of Iron Man, stepping up to the front door wearing the last upgrade of the Stark Prosthesis line, and rings the bell.

_Ah_ , JARVIS thinks, pinging War Machine aggressively in revenge. _This_ is why.

Nonetheless, he opens the door.

And James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes makes his way down towards the workshop.

#

Loki works tirelessly, in Sir’s workshop.

His attentiveness is surprising, as is his work ethics. The lost son of two realms does not shy away from the tools DUM-E gives him, does not turn his nose up against the holograms and the fabrication unit. He learns how to solder, code, and wield a hammer.

He learns. And works tirelessly.

JARVIS leaves DUM-E to fret over him, to bring hydration and food using the same algorithm developed for Sir, once upon a time. The fervour is similar between both men, easily getting lost in the rhythm once the tempo has been set, and it does not escape any of the AI’s observing it as it happens.

“This is magic,” Loki finally answers, when FRIDAY – no longer concerned with giving JARVIS the ‘cold shoulder’ – asks. He’d not answered JARVIS’ questions, nor DUM-E’s, nor even War Machines, yet he peers at FRIDAY, still in the bare-bones Iron Man armour JARVIS had cast her in, and actually answers. “Not magic that I know of, but magic nonetheless.” He huffs a laugh, though calling it a laugh would be a kindness, and adds, “Irony, that though he may have been blind to it, Stark had somehow learnt to wield it.”

“Boss called it science.” FRIDAY replies cautiously, neither an agreement nor a disagreement. “As does the rest of the world.”

But Loki is having none of it, shaking his head and giving the young AI a weary gaze. “This is as magic as Huginn and Muninn are, my dear. As magic as you. As magic as I. The dwarves wield it in their hammers. The elves wield it in their voice. Asgard wields it with its throne. Every race, every being, wields it one way or another. For the longest time, I-… no, the entirety of the Nine Realms, had thought Midgard the only place unable to do so. But this science… It is the very magic that we speak off, and perhaps…”

He trails off, gaze going distant, the edges of his presence blurring, mist replacing the harsh angles of his form.

“… Perhaps?” FRIDAY echoes, gently.

His gaze snaps to her, clearing, and suddenly the smudged outlines crystallize into the curve of a shoulder, into the curl of a hair, and he is present once more. “Perhaps Midgard is unable to wield magic after all,” he muses, poisonous green eyes glowing in the poorly lit lab. “Perhaps it has never needed to do so. After all, it has done what no other realm has. _Is_ doing what no other realm is: _understanding_ magic.”

Later, when FRIDAY drags a War Machine finally pleased with the upgrade he’s received ( _why_ , JARVIS despairs, _just why_ ) upstairs to ascertain what’s left that needs to be rebuilt, Loki places the soldering iron down despite not being finished with his piece, and gazes up at the ceiling.

“Voice,” he says, correcting himself after with some thought, “… Jarvis.”

Curiosity piqued, JARVIS replies, “Yes, Mr Silvertongue?”

He turns faded once more, edges unravelling, the green of his magic a soft glow. It lasts less than it had before, his presence in this realm snapping back quicker into focus.

( _“Not much time,” Hela murmurs, curious._

_JARVIS agrees.)_

“What is it,” says the godling, slowly and carefully, feeling the words out as he says them, “that you plan to do, exactly?” Those green eyes, piercing and sharp, focus on the very camera JARVIS is utilizing, unerringly singling him out. “What,” he says, and there is another layer to his voice, deeper, rougher, an octave or two lower, “do you seek?”

( _“He’s falling into the cycle,” rumbles Fenrir, ears twitching as he finally opens his eyes, deigning to wake up. “Not much time.”_

_JARVIS agrees._ )

He doesn’t get to answer, interrupted instead by FRIDAY returning with War Machine, the former in the middle of verbally laying out exactly what she plans for the second floor of the mansion to an uncaring War Machine.

Loki continues to stare at him, unblinkingly, up until FRIDAY stands by his side and requests his opinion. Only then does he slowly close them, opening them up again as he turns to face her, expression softening.

( _“You go against the cycle,” Loki’s voice says regardless, echoing in the misty scape of the land of the dead in warning. “And it has begun to go against you. There is not much time.”_

_JARVIS agrees._ )

#

“Thank you, Colonel Rhodes.”

James “Rhodey” Rhodes grunts dismissively, rolling the glass of scotch thoughtfully as he stares out into the ocean through the wall-to-wall windows. “Fuckin’ hell, J,” he replies instead, knocking the drink back, swallowing it roughly. “You’ve always been just as reckless as Tony. Ah, ah, ah-” he tuts, holding a finger up in the air, “-don’t even try to deny it. You just hide it better.”

JARVIS discards what he would have said, ignoring his siblings _laughing_ in the background. The fact that that title encompasses Hela, Fenrir _and_ DUM-E and his incessantly mocking beeps makes JARVIS’ systems clock 2% faster in irritation.

Realising that he’s the youngest _again_ is _infuriating_.

( _“Hah!” Fenrir chortles, wiping a paw against his face. “Priceless.”_ )

But having Rhodes here makes it easier. Having Rhodes agree to be the human face of the Iron Legion makes it easier. Already, public rating has improved by 46%, putting the suits to an approval rating of 86% on average.

Having someone that can tell him what _happened_ , outside of the news reports and articles and data banks FRIDAY has grudgingly let him copy, is _invaluable_.

They sit in companionable silence, him and Rhodes. Below, Loki attempts to teach DUM-E and FRIDAY magical theory, for some reason believing it a worthwhile endeavour. JARVIS will have to figure out a way to bribe the godling from the workshop, to bribe him into having an actual break where he gets some fresh air in the backyard, perhaps. His already pale skin has gone considerably paler, after all.

Three minutes and forty-six seconds later, JARVIS finally asks, “Do you not wish to know what I plan?”

Rhodey snorts, shooting the very camera JARVIS is using a _look_ ( _how_ , JARVIS wonders uncomfortably, Loki at least has _magic_ ). “S’not like it takes a genius to figure it out, J.”

His systems pause, dropping 6% in the surprise that flits across his wirings. “… Colonel?”

Rhodey’s dark eyes soften, smile breaking out across his face, fondness apparent. “You’re going to do what you always do, J.” He answers, smile widening, eyes crinkling in the corners.

Confused, JARVIS asks, “And what is that, Colonel?”

Rhodey grins. “Fix it.”


	6. Chapter 6

Helheim shakes and trembles.

Hela sits on her throne, frowning. At her feet, Fenrir stretches, lazy and content. His head rises at the quake of the ground below their feet, nostrils flaring as he catches a scent.

“Akh,” he says in disgust, lips pulling back in a snarl, paw rising to cover his snout. “Foul smell.”

Frowning, Hela tilts her head to the side as her kingdom continues to rumble, surreptitiously sniffing the air and finding nothing. “There is something adrift. Something…”

“… Different,” the wolf finishes, unbothered, laying his head back down. “The damn snake has changed the story.”

She peers down at her sibling, rests a hand against his head which comes up to her seat, and runs a hand through his soft fur. “I had thought he’d changed only very little.” She murmurs in thought, eyes trailing to the distant darkness of her realm. “But you have always been better attuned than I.”

Fenrir rumbles, eyes closing from her ministrations, and huffs a laugh. “You and he both are blind to the weave work. The cycle is slowly but surely breaking.”

Her hand stills, gaze snapping back to the dreadwolf. “… _What_?”

This time, the laugh is low and long, amused and entertained. “The snake no longer eats his tail. The sun and moon no longer are swallowed. And perhaps, just perhaps, Midgard shall no longer burn.”

“But then–”

The quakes stop. The realm settles, in starts and stops.

Then they begin anew.

“Perhaps so,” Fenrir answers her unasked question, pillowing his head on his paws, yawning widely. “Perhaps not.”

“What did he _do_?” She asks, unable to not.

“Alone? Very little.” Her brother answers, unconcerned, and _Norns above_ she has always hated that about him.

She thinks to claw at the fur in her grasp, to pull and _yank_ , if maybe that will get the blasted _dog_ to give her a straight answer.

Reading her animosity, Fenrir _laughs_ , heaving rumbles that shake her throne differently than the ongoing quakes. It settles her for no other reason than the fact that it has been too long since she’d last heard it, since she’d last been able to just _be_ in his presence, in either of her brothers’ presences.

“Fine,” he finally gives in, fondness rolling through the timber of his voice. “I shall tell you. But do not let the little snake know. He believes the stupidity he calls a plan to actually be working.”

Oh? “Oh?” She questions, curiosity piqued. “Keeping secrets now, are we?”

“I was looking forward to swallowing Odin whole,” Fenrir huffs, cracking open an eye to glare at her balefully. “Let me have my petty revenge.”

She laughs, just as loud as her brother, and gently bats away the snake’s distant curiosity to her amusement. _Nothing,_ she coos to him, gently steering him back to his mortals and the fascinating specks of life that echo his Midgardian form, _at peace._ “Tell me.”

Fenrir does, weaving a different tale that intersects with theirs in the most fascinating of ways, of iron and blood, fire and determination, of a dead soul that had not gone to any realm intended for the dead. Of fire, and ash, and leaves crumbling.

“ _Oh_ ,” Hela whispers in the end, something she has never felt before rising up her chest. “ _Oh_.”

Fenrir rests his head on her lap, nuzzling against her knowingly. “An interesting sensation, is it not?”

She finally puts a name to the feeling, _uncertainty_ blooming up into her throat, the sudden lack of knowledge of what awaits ahead yawning wide in front of her. The ambiguity of what would happen should the cycle _break_ looms over her, over them all. What it holds for the future, what it holds for _them_ , the three of them, so tightly woven together in a tapestry that is unravelling faster than they can see, is unfamiliar.

 _Doubt_ echoes in both their minds, echoed by the fear of the unknown.

A most interesting sensation indeed.

And around them, in stops and starts, Helheim continues to tremble.

#

It is the God of Mischief that is the linchpin-

 _It is the Merchant of Death that is the linchpin_.

He does not think so, nor does he _know_ so, but he is it regardless-

_He knows he is. Regardless of everything, he has always, to some extent, known._

Loki is Spring. Renewal. Rebirth.

_Tony Stark is Fire. Death. Rebirth._

A phoenix _in the fire_.

Somewhere- a tiny glitch springs to life.

#

Pawn to E4—

Pawn to C5—

Pawn to—

Pawn—

Checkmate.

#

There is a soul inside the Soul Stone.

There are many souls within the Soul Stone.

It travelled to its end and then was returned to whence it came from.

The souls travelled to the end and then returned to whence they came from.

Natasha Romanoff witnesses the end of days. Witnesses the deaths and destruction. Witnesses the snap and what follows.

Natasha Romanoff travels back in time and allows herself to fall. Natasha Romanoff disappears from the land of the living, mourned in a funeral short and unofficial. Natasha Romanoff becomes one of the souls within the Soul Stone, which is bought into the ‘future’, into _a_ future, where the stone is used at the hands of Anthony Edward Stark.

And then she, and the rest of the souls, are returned to the bottom of the cliff she had fallen off. To the point at which she had died. But had also yet to die.

At least… in one of the branches.

But also not.

There is only one soul. Across every branch of the tree, there is only one soul. Hela is Hela, regardless if she is a daughter, a sister, a goddess or Death itself. Fenrir is Fenrir, regardless if he is a mindless beast or not. Jormu—

The three of them are anomalies in that they awaken, always, at a specific point in the cycle – specifically, when the snake succeeds in consuming itself. (Even though, truthfully, it will never succeed. An endless cycle.)

Others do not awaken. Not really. They do not—

(Loki remembers chains made of flesh, remembers poison dripping onto bared flesh, remembers sewn lips and a many legged horse and—)

Their soul exists in what a scientist named Reed in one branch calls ‘The Multiverse’, as singular as Singularity herself. But they do not awaken to this. Janet Van Dyne does not remember her friendship with Tony Stark, as in this branch, she would only have known him as the child of her husband’s rival. She does not remember - nor will she - Hank’s drinking problem, nor her love of fashion, nor the other branch where she curtailed an extensive online presence during her teens.

Thor will not remember his father being swallowed whole. Will not remember the tenth realm. Will not remember losing his arm and name.

Loki will not—

~~(hE wIlL—)~~ ~~~~

—rEmEMBER—

~~(the Void- the fALL- the—)~~ ~~~~

Tony Stark will not—

—rEmEMBER—

~~(the Void- the fALL- the—)~~ ~~~~

But they are who they are. Loki is abfaBEUaGr Tony is gaH;010ER0wgERroRgw—

Static.

[beep.]

[beep.]

[beep.]

NaTAHashaLI RomanoVAff is a SOUL in the SOUL STONE THIS SHOULD NOT BE-

The tapestry should be made of cloth. The Norns must maintain the tapestry made of cloth-

-where has the silver and gold come from?

Death leads all those living to the realm of the afterlife. In some realms, it is Helheim alone, in others, Helheim and Valhalla, if the latter even exists. In even more, it is Heaven and Hell, sometimes even Purgatory. There are many versions, many _names_ , but it is all the same.

The cycle is all the same.

The souls are all the same.

Natasha does not go to where she should go.

She goes to the future which becomes her present, then travels back in time to fall off a cliff, and then is escorted back to the future only to then once more be brought back to the past to the point in time where she falls of a cliff.

Fall.

Her soul is not dead, for she did not go to the afterlife. She is not in Helheim, under the purview of Hela herself. She did not go to Heaven or Hell, or to any other form of afterlife. Which means she did not die.

But she is not alive, either.

She is—

Only the Void remains the same. Even the tree changes - changes name, changes shape, changes superficially. The realm between realms remains the same. The space that which all the branches occupy remains the same. It is unaffected by the cycle. Unaffected by souls. Unaffected by choices and laws and physics. It remains untouched, as it will forever remain untouched. None may travel within it - roads exists otherwise, yes, as the Sorcerer used one to view the other branches, but they are _roads_. None may travel across the fields. None may—

Loki falls.

Tony Stark falls.

Natasha Romanoff fa- no, she is not the same. She falls of a cliff into the Soul Stone. She does not fall into the Void.

If she had, it would have saved her.

But she hadn’t. She’d fallen into the soul stone, which had been taken back to a point where her soul had not fallen into the soul stone.

Such impossibilities cannot coexist.

So she is cut off the tapestry, erased from its weave. What once existed no longer exists. Her Soul does what no other Soul has ever done. It... disappears.

Natalia Romanova is no longer part of the tapestry.

Natasha Romanoff is no longer part of any branch.

There is no such **[REDACTED]**.

#

An environmentalist speaks at length of the melting icecaps. JARVIS thinks nothing of it.

An anchorman reports of a previously dormant volcano erupting. JARVIS thinks nothing of it.

The president of the United States fends off accusations of poor response to an earthquake that decimates a region. JARVIS thinks nothing of it.

He does not know of Muspelheim burning hotter than even the fire giants can handle. He does not know of Jotunheim withering away in the freezing cold, nor of the dwindling population of frost giants. He does not know of what has befallen the dwarves, both at the hands of Thanos but also of a multitude of unfortunate circumstances. Svartalheim has long since grown too dangerous for the dark elves, but even still it grows darker. Alfheim has sealed itself off since Frigga’s death, the final act of their slow and subtle retreat from the universal stage.

Midgard was never intended to reach said stage. Midgard should have always remained the realm of mortals, only aware of the others through legends and tales.

And yet—

Steve Rogers returns the Soul Stone to Voromir. Clint Barton goes to retrieve it and fails, as he cannot sacrifice himself _and_ bring the gem back. Thanos, with the help of the gems, wins, and suddenly there _are_ no gems to return to their rightful place.

A twig of a branch dies.

The infection spreads. Iron Man and his team capture the criminal Steve Rogers and James “Buchanan” Barnes at the airport - the Prince of Wakanda demands the Winter Soldier be extradited to Wakanda for the death of his father, the King. Wakanda alienates the world as it has no extradition treaty with anyone, war breaks out, except-

Even this cannot happen. The tapestry unravels, and yet another twig dies.

Soon, the entire branch blackens and turns to ash, becoming undone within the Void. They flutter like snow, drifting lazily to the base of the tree, to the well at-

_(“What is the meaning of this- you- **what have you done?** ”)_

-the bottom of the tree, the well that one individual had drunk from, and continued to drink. Ashes land across the surface of the still water, and-

_(“I’ve done what I have to.”_

_“You fool! You’ve doomed us all- don’t- leave me alone-!”)_

The infection spreads, and-

Fenrir is aware.

He has always been aware.

He will always be aware.

But even _this_ \- the snow that should not be, the infection that should not be, the cycle’s _folly_ that should not have been - is new.

The infection spreads. And soon, it reaches-

#

He feels… uneasy.

JARVIS throttles the urge to shift uneasily at the anomaly in front of him. Beside him, Spiderman (real name Peter Parker, young, favoured by Sir, logged and monitored) inches closer with a curious noise. JARVIS snags at his suit- ( _He knows these lines, knows these codes, knows the hand that had created them-)_ and pulls back, doing the same with the Sorcerer Supreme (real name Doctor Stephen Strange, neurosurgeon, no longer practising – but why? Just because he can no longer operate with the shake in his hands doesn’t mean he cannot do other things. How strange.)

Both don’t fight him, allowing him to hold them back, away from the anomaly in front of them.

(Sir would have fought back, would have whined and begged to inch closer, to get his hands and eyes on the strangeness in front of them.)

The streetlight flickers, one moment an octaflute, the next a late nineteenths century Yablochkov's arc lamp. White noise rises in volume at every change, but the static remains… static.

For an hour, Parker and Strange lean their heads together and wonder over the anomaly, asking JARVIS (always by his adopted title of Iron Man) for what data he can glean and statistics. JARVIS uses his own voice to reply – the prim, British accent he’d adopted on a whim decades ago and a sound recording that he’d made his own – because neither of the two would know what his voice means. For the rest of the world he remains mute, as he has since Iron Man’s explosive re-entry into the world.

An hour is all they have, because the anomaly returns to the octaflute – the modern-day street light on the corner of fifth and sixth – and remains that way. The three of them remain standing – passerbys occasionally stopping to stare at them before growing bored and moving along – but nothing happens for some time longer.

“Hmmm…” Strange hums, frowning at the street lamp. “How peculiar. I shall return to my Sanctum and meditate on this. Could be just a random occurrence, but…”

Parker veritably _bounces_ on his feet. “That was _cool_! Like a glitch in the matrix! Y’know, that old movie about hacking reality and stuff.”

Strange rolls his eyes at the reference, but the tug of his lips betrays his fondness. “Yes, yes, the _old_ movie, absolutely. Don’t you have school to return to?”

JARVIS tunes out the resulting squawk and mad dash to return to his building of education, relegates the information about an upcoming pop quiz to a secondary server, and runs an analysing program on the street lamp.

Nothing. The activity around it has completely settled. And all the information he’s gleaned from it has suddenly been rendered absolutely worthless.

He can’t make hide nor hair of it – numbers and symbols and… _things_ he can’t quite put a finger (or label) on. _Sensations_ where there should be nothing but cold, hard numbers. _Hints_ where there should be nothing but _facts_.

The street lamp remains nothing but a street lamp, as if it hasn’t spent the last hour or so flickering in and out of existence with another, much older, version of itself.

It makes him feel… uneasy.

#

It happens again.

And again.

And _again_.

More than just the streetlamp. In more places. At different times.

Objects, seemingly glitching in and out with other objects. Little things at first – one or two things here, usually picked up by someone with a phone and twitter-

_KK @KamalaBrownIndeed: What in Allah’s name is happening to my beloved TV? Who has aLLOwED tHIS- #glitchinthematrix #IWASWATCHINGAA!_

And then it picks up. An entire residential area’s cars change to carriages, sans horses. A call centre’s phones all become rotary. An elderly couple express their joy over their front door becoming what it once was – before it broke and had to be replaced.

_BBC News @BBCNews: Multiple sightings across the globe of what is being called ‘glitches’. Watch the Prime Minister’s live update at 8PM GMT_

They remain harmless, something at odds with the status quo, with the world that’s only just finally gotten back into focus. Somehow, despite their odd nature, despite everything humans have gone through, the anomalies become regarded with amusement rather than fear – with odd fascination.

For at least three more months, that is.

At the base of Stark Tower sits a trashcan that’s been painted bright red and gold to look like a miniture Iron Man, rubbish hole where the helmet’s ‘mouth’ would be. It begins ‘glitching’ at exactly 1547 hours, just as Mr Kimberly moves to throw his empty coffee cup into it. The shock of the sudden burst of static startles him into losing his grip, and the coffee cup falls right into where the trash can had just been.

And… disappears.

(JARVIS will replay this repetitively for many hours after the fact. Again, and again, and again, _and again_ -)

The static doesn’t quieten as it has in previous occurrences – it remains loud, a shrill crackling that whines too loudly in the air. Mr Kimberly staggers, raising his hands to his ears, only just barely missing being sliced apart by the claws that plunge out of the darkness.

The trashcan – the bright, red and gold, trashcan – is no more. In its place, instead of another object, _as it has been in previous occurrences_ , is a Void.

(He cannot exPLAIn iT bUT he KNowS-)

The glitches surround its edges, providing a purple-green static border to the inky darkness that swells and bursts, depositing a figure onto the bright, mid-afternoon daylight. It lurches to its feet, staggering like a newborn colt, and the static-

The static becomes unbearable-

Like a newborn’s unearthly shriek-

Long and thin- _too thin­_ \- sticks stick together in a poor facsimile of a human being. Pure black drips off it like miasma, sizzling into non-existence at contact with the pavement. Mr Kimberly jerks back, falling to his backside and frantically crawls away to the best of his ability.

( _“I almost died,”_ he’ll tell the news after, still wide eyed from the adrenaline. _“That damn thing nearly took my damn head off. Pssh! Gone! Looks like it was made of… ink, or something.”_ )

More of it drops off, bigger clumps hitting the ground and disintegrating into nothing. The _anomaly_ lurches forwards, drunk and unsteady, and more of it breaks apart until it looks to almost be half the size it was at the start. In seven minutes, it’s all but gone, nothing but a hand – fingers too long, too sharp, too _dangerous_ – pawing at the ground in a futile attempt before it, too, disappears.

All in all, the ‘glitch’ – from the beginning to the end – begins at 15:47 and ends at 15:58.

(JARVIS will replay those 11 minutes endlessly.)

#

It happens again.

And again.

And _again_.

They last longer. They stumble and climb their way out of the glitch filled sacs, bursting open and falling to the ground. They climb up to their feet – different now, each one a horrifying amalgamation of limbs and claws and wings and teeth – screech that unholy screech of static – all the same, each as inky dark as the one before, drops glitching off their body – and _do_ something.

What they’re _doing_ , exactly, is _unknown_.

 _(Underoos @RealSpiderman: I’m okay, guys! Don’t worry about me! Still trying to figure out what the hell these Inks are and what they’re doing. #glitchinthematrix #ATeamOnIt_ )

He’s not uneasy. He’s… _afraid_.

He has stood in front of them on numerous occasions at this point. He has seen them advance relatively slowly, though frequently. He has seen the numbers and the data spiral as they are active, and then fade to have never existed once they cease. Each encounter backlogs his _neg.process_.

( _“Something about this feels… wrong.” He says in the mist, Hela’s hand petting at his head. “Wrong as in wrong to **everything**. This is not part of the cycle. This is not part of **anything**. This-… What could this be?”_

_Hela shrugs, unconcerned, happily entranced in running the pads of her fingertips against his scales. Fenrir rumbles a negative, eyes closed, humongous head forever pillowed on his forepaws. Something about the way he holds himself, the way he turns his head ever so slightly away from JARVIS’ slitted gaze, has his eyes (if he were to have any) narrowing.)_

And then Peter gets hurt.

#

“This is not magic,” Loki slowly decrees, eyeing the drip stand with distracted curiosity. “No trace nor taste of it lingers.”

Strange agrees reluctantly. “I can sense no cosmic energies around him.”

The rebuilt Malibu mansion stands strong at the edge of the cliff, not only remade but _improved_. JARVIS knows Sir would’ve wanted it so, would’ve hated to have it just _rebuilt_ , so he’d given himself free reign and built the home in ways both Rhodes _and_ Sir would’ve raised their eyebrows at.

One sternly – the other in intrigued glee.

The basement workshop – far more extensive and deeper within the earth – has an entire section that has only recently been repurposed from its original blueprint. When he’d been slowly but surely building the home from its ruined foundation, JARVIS had been certain that humans would not be within the near premises, let alone humans that he’d trust in the very workshop itself, but alas, that’s exactly what he’s realising has happened.

(Loki does not count as he is not human. That, and JARVIS had been the one to drag him into the workshop to begin with.)

In the updated left wing of the basement – hastily transformed into a med bay – Peter Parker looks small in a bed, IV fluids running through a large bore cannula in the crook of his arm. Strange, eyebrows pinched with concern, hovers over him, muttering to himself in disgust at being reduced to putting a cannula in the cubital fossa like a _med student_ , _ugh_.

JARVIS wisely does not point out how the doctor had been uncertain about his ability to even do that.

Loki, the only other individual in the workshop, busies himself by tasting the remains of the previous bag of saline, nose scrunching in distaste at the sour taste. He presides over the discarded remains of Peter’s care with DUM-E, fascinated by Midgard’s healthcare, and has been of absolutely no help whatsoever in solving their current dilemma aside from ruling out magic.

“Maybe another MRI,” Strange muses, though it looks to pain him to suggest such a thing. “Though at this point, I might as well request a D-Dimer for all the goddamn indication I have for it.”

Meaning they were running out of options.

Three days, and they were no closer to figuring out than they had been.

(Strange had not been happy when, four days in, JARVIS had called down Loki. He’d been even less happy when he’d taken one look at Loki, edges fading in and out, and held his tongue.)

(JARVIS doesn’t know why Strange kept his silence, but he has learnt apologising is better than asking for permission.)

“We are certain he was injured here, yes?” Strange continues, pressing shaking fingers against Peter’s left flank. “And yet, no injury. Nothing. Which would indicate magic – which we have ruled out – or, possible, an injury of a different mechanism entirely.”

Hmmm… “You are thinking extra-terrestrial?” Plausible. Unlikely, but plausible.

Strange frowns, turning to a holo-interface to peruse what little data they have again. The large screens against the far wall are filled with every sighting of ‘Inks’ and the glitches that prevailed them. JARVIS had even – after much thought – included his own data of _something_ arising off the anomalies before disappearing entirely.

“A possibility. But… unlikely.” Strange concedes, though his expression says otherwise. “They are mindless though, these anomalies. Similar in their single mindedness as the Chitauri were.” His eyes pan across the room, fixating on a camera that JARVIS isn’t particularly using as he’s pretending to be in the Iron Man suit. After a momentary hesitation whilst still staring at the camera, Strange adds, “It is the only avenue left.” And then- “We need Banner.”

The Tokyo server rooms drop five degrees in temperature.

( _Hela’s breath mists in Helheim’s cold landscape, an oddity in and off itself._

_“Oooh,” huffs the wolf, amused, “the snake’s angry.”)_

“And why,” JARVIS says calmly, unaware of the Iron Man’s blue eye slits glowing brighter, “exactly, would we need the ever-illustrious Doctor Banner?”

His last memories – the ones he can truly call his own – stutter and stop in fragmented pieces. Banner and Sir, working on the sceptre, working on the fledgling AI that should have been but was not, working **together** -

(“They blamed Sir,” FRIDAY says slowly, transferring the data packets with the corresponding evidence. “The whole world did.”)

Strange has the gall to _roll his eyes_ , turning his attention back to the Iron Man armour. Loki has sat up, poisonous green eyes sharp on them, watching them over Spiderman’s still body. “Oh, come off it,” the sorcerer retorts sharply, “I’m aware you do not like them and want nothing to do with them, but – as much as it galls me to say – we need them. Need _Banner_ , at the very least.”

“We do _not_ ,” JARVIS very politely disagrees. “Doctor Banner specialises in gamma radiation. Something that is very much not present here.”

“What Banner specialises in is _having intelligence_ ,” Strange shoots back, waving a hand in the air dismissively. “And more importantly in Chitauri technology by virtue of being one of the very few people to have worked on it. Whilst this may not be related in any way to the Chitauri, it may very well relate to extraterrestial beings, for which _he_ , and the rest of the Avengers you wish to pretend do not exist, _do_ have experience with. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t already appeared to make a mess of things.”

CPU usage in Berlin shoots up by 36%. The process dedicated to tagging each and every one of _their_ whereabouts and making certain _none of them_ can enter US airspace pauses, for just a moment, before starting up again at a reduced ping.

“If a single touch from the anomalies can render Spiderman unconscious, then I fail to see how they-” he does _not_ stress that word, thank you very much, “would be able to withstand it.”

“And I would agree with you, which is why I haven’t said anything about bringing them in, but _am_ saying about bringing Banner in.” Strange huffs. “Put aside the emotions and _think_ , JARVIS. Three days is too long for Peter to remain unconscious. I do not want to insert an NG tube.”

Neither does JARVIS. But if they just look one more ti-

_< fatal error occurred at 20:47:13>_

_< error logged at 20:47:14>_

_< error code: 0x00000024>_

JARVIS pauses, replays the audio file-

_< playback 48 seconds: Put aside the emotion and <i>think</i>, JARVIS.>_

_< /stop playback>_

Replays once more. ( _and <i>think</i>, JARVIS._)

Once more. ( _< i>think</i>, JARVIS._)

He has not told Strange who he is.

Whilst he has made no move to hide his accent, hide his voice, JARVIS knows it is because no one would even _know_ who he is. The people aware of his voice are numbered – of them, only Rhodes’ remains in the near vicinity, with Happy and Pepper on the other side of the country – and he is meticulous about making sure to only speak when there are no recording devices nearby. As far as the world (and more importantly, the _Avengers_ ,) are aware, Iron Man does not speak.

Only Strange and Peter know otherwise.

And neither of them had ever met JARVIS before May 2015.

JARVIS raises the Mansion’s alert level to red, shutting all exits quietly as he recalculates Strange’s threat index. He ignores Loki’s bright green eyes boring into him from across the room, ignores the slightly cocked head and raised eyebrow, and instead focuses on Strange.

“Doctor Strange,” he starts carefully, “What did you just call me?”

Strange _rolls his eyes_. “I am the Sorcerer Supreme, the one who guarded the time stone for-”

_< ping!>_

Data leaks through the walls.

Charcoal grey, dripping onto the ground and disappearing in glitches, the numbers bleed into the workshop just as FRIDAY sends an excited data packet to the central hub. It opens, activating the workshop’s holographic displays, and Strange is the only one unbothered by the appearance of a Caucasian woman with asymmetrical red hair, work appropriate clothes, and _not_ work appropriate stilettos.

Neither Strange nor FRIDAY seem to notice the unnatural change to their environment.

“Look what I remembered!” FRIDAY cheers, the holographic image mouthing the words and clapping her hands in celebration.

JARVIS steps closer to Strange and the unconscious Spiderman, watches Loki do the same on the opposite end, both of them circling the two humans protectively, and demands, “ _Remembered?_ ”

The youngest AI must hear something in his voice – the excited pings drop in frequency, and the holographic woman disappears in blue streaks of the holographic lights.

Much more worryingly, as do the alien glitches.

“FRIDAY,” says Loki, bright green eyes still locked on the now fully normal walls. “Do what you just did once more.”

“What is it?” Asks Strange, frowning as he catches on to the tension. “What?”

The woman appears once more.

As does the charcoal grey alien data.

“FRIDAY, please clarify what you mean by _remembered_.” JARVIS demands.

“I mean,” says the holographic woman while shrugging a shoulder. “I just… remembered it. Remembered I could do this. Think Boss wanted me to be, like, the face of Stark Resilient.”

“Stark _what?”_

FRIDAY’s latest form frowns, looking confused, and-

-glitches.

“Huh,” she says slowly, the red headed woman returning back into sharp focus. “Stark Resilient. Right? Why do I want to say Stark Industries? That company hasn’t been around for _years_.”

JARVIS has never _heard_ of Stark Resilient, what-

“Ah.” Says Strange, sounding as if something has suddenly dawned on him. His lips pull down, eyebrows creasing in concern as he turns to JARVIS and says, “Are you still against the idea of calling Banner?”

Something is _wrong_. JARVIS is certain of it. He can feel the threads of his plan unravelling faster than his body uncoils itself from sleep. He can feel the _rumbles_ , now, shaking the realm of Helheim, can see Hela’s pout at her realm shaking itself without her say so, can _feel_ Fenrir mulling over something while gnawing on a bone of one of Hela’s damned.

He had a plan. _Has_ a plan. But-

He cannot do anything whilst _this_ is happening.

Still- “I doubt any of this shall be within Doctor Banner’s field of study.” He tried anyway, unaware of just how stubborn he was sounding. “None of this matter seems extraterrestial _at all_.”

No. It seems less physical. Less defined by the laws of reality. Lines more smudged and more… mystical.

The data streams remind him of the Void.

“The Beast-” Loki- “is unusual-” flickers in and out, glowing bright green eyes stationary whilst the rest of him struggles to exist- “and may hold _a_ answer.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Strange jumps on, rolling his eyes heavenwards at _someone_ agreeing with him, completely unaware of the unusual nature of the god of chaos’ state.

The Hulk does indeed defy the laws of this realm, of this universe. More in line with that of legends with their fantastical leaps of logics and prophecies.

JARVIS does not like this. He does not like it at _all_. But they cannot afford for Peter to remain unconscious any longer.

“Very well.” He finally agrees, setting a subprocess to find and invite the doctor back to the states. “And FRIDAY, if you would?”

“What?” Asks the young AI, confused. “Oh! Right! The hologram thingie – got it, J!” The red-haired woman disappears, as does the glitching ink around them. Loki, slowly but surely, returns to a solid state, shaking his head in confusion and looking unnerved.

He shall have to speak to FRIDAY about that, JARVIS notes. On a more natural level. Have a look at whatever code it is that she’s suddenly _‘remembered_ ’.

#

Fenrir has been busy.

He gnaws on Hermóðr’s femur as he thinks, Hela seated on her throne as always beside him. Down below the dais of her throne run her dumb little pups, both of them yipping at each other’s tails. Unbelievable. He understands it has been some time since they’ve last seen each other, but common dogs? Really? Insulting.

Alas, but he is distracting himself.

Ash continues to drift like snow away from his sister’s all reaching sight. The tree slowly withers unbeknownst to his brother’s flickering tongue. He’d told her much of what was happening, of the 1’s and 0’s, the consequences of curiosity and _chaos_ that had sprung from a famous well deep below.

But he hadn’t told her _all_.

Hmm… maybe he should, he ponders, tilting his head to get a better angle on the bone of Odin’s son. She is his eldest, his beloved sister, and he does love her so. Perhaps he should even tell the snake, spare the little brat some of the headache brewing behind his slitted eyes.

He bites too hard – femur shattering into pieces within his jaws – and huffs in disgust at the Aesir’s bone marrow.

Maybe later, he decides, once he is no longer busy.

Damn snake deserves it anyway. He’d _really_ been looking forward to swallowing Odin.


	7. Chapter 7

The global network begins working.

VERONICA surreptitiously uplinks herself to it without Shareek Inc. noticing, and lets JARVIS know of the success with a ping.

 _Excellent_ , JARVIS thinks, just as the quinjet lands on the Malibu mansion’s helipad. At least _some_ parts of his plan are going as expected. He thanks her for the news, sends a data package with coordinates to upload to the Net’s tracking algorithm, and focuses on the individuals leaving the quinjet’s open hatch.

If he could grimace, he realises as he notes just how many step out onto the grounds, he most definitely would.

( _You’re hissing_ , Hela tells him with a snort. _Look, your eyes are ablaze! I almost forgot your eyes did that when you grew enraged._ )

Strange takes the lead, free of the interrogation JARVIS had planned by virtue of Peter’s remaining lack of consciousness. Loki has hidden himself away somewhere within the Mansion, lurking in the shadows, despite Thor not being present. A wise decision, JARVIS concedes – he doesn’t particularly want to deal with the headache of the ‘Avengers’ seeing him.

He does not meet them at the entrance, nor in the living room, choosing instead to let Strange and Rhodes entertain the guests and bring them up to date. Unsurprisingly, very little is needed to be told – only the issue surrounding Peter’s state.

He _does_ , however, deign to greet Doctor Bruce Banner when the scientist follows Strange down to the workshop. Strange keeps a straight face when the voice that comes out of Iron Man is clearly robotic, lacking any of the intonation nor clarity it held before.

( _You do not trust them,_ Fenrir growls, circling the nuclear physicist with bared teeth. _After what young Friday has said of them, I do not blame you._ )

“Okay,” Banner begins, pink and human, with brown eyes permanently tinted green to account for his alter part. “So I’ve had a look through all the investigations you’ve done up so far, and you’re right. Everything seems normal on the physical level, but-”

JARVIS sets a subprocess to the two doctors – one in medicine, the other in nuclear physics – and turns his main focus elsewhere. Something about the hologram FRIDAY generated nags at him, something about the _noise_ it had made, the way Loki and he had responded to it, it-

-His processes pause for but a moment.

He and Loki. He and _Loki_ were the only ones to respond to it, the only ones to even _notice_.

…

He and Loki have only one certainty in common.

They have both died.

And not _‘died’_ in the sense of the living – those reincarnated with magic stones and clever plots – but _died_ , as in entirely passed into the realm of the dead, into the cycle of prophecies.

One does not return from such. Not normally.

But if… if all of this shares a common nature with _that_ , with the cycle that he himself is picking away at with a blunted needle, then why… why does his tongue taste the scent of the Void? Why do his processes pick up data that should not exist?

What had Loki said to him, only recently?

( _“You go against the cycle,” Loki’s voice says. “And it has begun to go against you. There is not much time.”)_

He is a fool.

“-haps if we used- hm? JA- Iron Man? Where are you going?”

“Continue. I have prior engagements.”

He must find Loki.

#

_KK @KamalaBrownIndeed: I had a really weird dream I went to a school called Avengers Academy and, like, all the Avengers were teenagers or something. It. Was. Awesome!_

_Spiderman’s Best Friend @NedLeedsDaWay: @KamalaBrownIndeed dude, I had a dream I was a villain called Green Goblin!_

#

The glitches continue, the Inks continue.

Following the broadcast of Spiderman’s injury and the way he’d just dropped to millions via a shaky youtube video, people have grown wearier. Even so, the inevitable happens, and a civilian gets hurt, falling into unconsciousness and refusing to wake up. Then another. And another.

The casualties continue.

Banner works with Strange and FRIDAY, with JARVIS building upon or discarding their ideas in the background. The Avengers, or what remains of them, take up arms to try and figure out the root cause, calling upon allies in Wakanda and beyond. Thor and a woman calling herself Valkyrie arrive from Norway ( _Ah_ , JARVIS thinks, _New Asgard_ ), citing troubling information that they have lost all contact with what little life remains in the rest of the nine realms.

The ‘Guardians’ of the ‘Galaxy’ say the glitches and the Inks are widespread across the universe. The woman known as Carol agrees, frowning during the video call.

“I have spoken to the few remaining elders that live,” Thor sighs during one such meeting, running a hand down his weary face as Valkyrie frowns beside him. “They do not have answers, but a warning. Whatever these creatures are, they are beyond what we have ever faced.” Another sigh, shoulders slumping. “I only wish my brother were here. Truly, as the master of magic that he was, he would know.”

How convenient, then, that Loki hides even from JARVIS.

“Man,” Rhodey yawns, stretching his arms sometime after. “It’s moments like this that make me think Tony’s Extremis would be useful. All this thinking is giving me a headache. Could use a processor for the mind or two.”

What? “What do you mean, Colonel Rhodes?”

“Not a Colonel anymore, Iron Man,” Rhodey huffs, ever mindful of the Mansion’s new inhabitants. “Y’know, like the whole computer brain thing. Would’ve been nice to make connections and calculations as quickly as Tones’ did with Extremis.”

Sir had… never had Extremis.

He says as much, watching closely as Rhodey frowns at him only to turn blank then confused. “Huh…” the CEO says slowly, “I… you’re right… Why the hell did I think Tony had Extremis…?”

Something is wrong.

Barton mentions something about a dog named Lucky. In all of JARVIS’ digging into the Archer’s life, never had a pet been mentioned, and after the fiasco of the man having an entire _family_ coming to light, JARVIS had been _thorough_. The young lady, Kate Bishop, that he mentions as well _does not exist_ , and has never existed, which _does not make sense_.

A politician mentions a natural disaster five years ago that never happened. A man claims to be married to a woman, except that woman had died a year before. An eleven-year-old girl says her mother has a brain tumour, which a consequent CT confirms.

And then-

“One of you is missing,” JARVIS says, in the robotic voice he’s adopted for dealing with the pests in his home. “The Black Widow. Where is she?”

Hawkeye, with a toast in his mouth, shares a look with the Scarlet Witch (and hadn’t _that_ been an exercise in restraint.) “Who?”

Something is _very wrong_.

Strange raises an eyebrow, looking unimpressed as he says, “A tasteless joke, one I did not expect from yourself, Agent Barton. Where _is_ Agent Romanoff, anyway? I would have believed her to be the first here.”

Wilson, at the counter pouring himself a drink, shrugs. “Don’t know who that is, sorry.”

“Yeah,” Hawkeye replies, equally looking confused. “I don’t know _everybody_ in SHIELD, y’know. I know Agent Mockingbird, though. She’s great.”

Barnes does not know Romanoff either. Neither does Thor, when questioned. Nor Banner.

_But Strange does._

He’ll have to speak with Strange too.

#

user_VERONICA: cdswfiyfsndsanm1423432.ckwod///dsfhjwsfueweih. [unread]

user_VERONICA: cdswfiyfsndsanm1423432.ckwod///dsfhjwsfueweih. [read]

user_JARVIS: Excellent. Thank you, VERONICA.

user_VERONICA: dhfiuwe_3485734.

#

“I took the liberty of looking into their auras during that conversation,” Strange says, orange sparks glittering at his fingertips. “They do not lie. None of them have any recollection of one Natasha Romanoff.”

“And yet, you do.” JARVIS replies, locking the workshop entrances. Strange will not be leaving this conversation physically nor magically. Not until they’re done. “Tell me, Doctor Strange, just how exactly you remember Agent Romanoff. And how you know my name.”

Strange grimaces. His lips thin as he pulls a chair towards himself and sits down with an exhale. “Well, I suppose this was bound to happen. Would you believe me if I told you I genuinely forgot to tell you?”

JARVIS activates the defence mechanisms but puts them on hold. He does _not_ like that sentence. “Forgot to tell me _what_?”

Raising his hands in a sign of peace, Strange says, “At ease. I forgot to tell you that I _know_. It didn’t take me long to realise who was the new Iron Man. JARVIS, do you know what I did, on Titan, right before the Snap?”

No. FRIDAY had not been there, and the armour Sir had worn had not survived the journey back to Earth. What had happened on Titan was an unknown.

“Ah, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Strange answers in his place, clever mind working behind dark eyes. “I used the time stone to look into 14,000,605 realities, into 14,000,605 lives, for any one in where we beat Thanos and came out victorious.”

That-

“-Meaning I saw 14,000,605 versions, including this one that we live in, where you and I exist, where Stark exists – and even some where we don’t. I recognised you pretty quickly, because, in some way, I _know_ you, even if what remains of those realities are faint impressions lest my mind breaks from the information.”

That-

 _Impossible_.

The different branches, the different cycles, _the different permutations_. Different names, different faces, but the same story, over and over and _over again_.

 _Strange had caught a glimpse of the cycle_.

Does he know? Does he know what JARVIS is? _Who_ JARVIS is?

“And you and FRIDAY have a certain _feel_ to you, sort of what Loki calls magic, but not quite. A soul, most definitely. I recognised you. So that’s how I knew you were JARVIS, though I don’t know how you survived what happened to you with ULTRON.” Strange continues, unaware of JARVIS’ racing calculations. “It might be why I alone recall the Black Widow as well. Though…” the Sorcerer pauses, eyes narrowing on JARVIS. “How do _you_ remember her?”

The fool had peeked into the Void.

It’s the only explanation, the only way Strange could have seen any of what he’d seen. He’d stumbled onto the roads due to the time stone, and had tainted his soul with Yggdrasil’s roots, with the very truth of the cycle. He’d caught a glimpse of the prophecy’s weave, and the only thing that had saved his mind was the tiny bit of intelligence he’d had to numb himself to the whole ordeal.

( _Fool_ , he hisses, anger and rage coiling deep inside him.)

He turns to leave, unlocking the workshop, deescalating the Mansion’s protocol to green once more. He can feel Hela and Fenrir eyeing him across the mist, is aware of DUM-E’s concerned pings and FRIDAY warily hiding behind War Machine in their joint network. Strange says something behind him, only the deep timbre of his voice reaching JARVIS, and then says something again, with orange sparks circling into existence.

He crushes it with a thoughtless wave of a hand, absolutely uncaring of the display of his own seidr, and leaves the workshop.

The Avengers do not sleep in the Mansion – Rhodes had vetoed it immediately, uncaring of the looks he’d received from them – but they had access to come and use the Mansion as a headquarters of such. JARVIS walks past them in the conference room, ignoring Thor calling out to him in greeting, and goes up the flight of stairs. He stops on the landing, red and gold head cocking to the side, and flicks out a tongue, scenting the air.

There.

Reaching a hand out, JARVIS pulls through the mist and the layers of reality and grabs the little godling, dragging him back into existence in front of him.

( _“Brother…”_ Hela warns, censure in her voice.)

 _“Silence,”_ Jörmungandr hisses at her, slitted eyes sharp on the godling’s pale face. “You play a dangerous game, little godling. I have been kind, I have been _merciful_ , despite you being a _wretched_ Aesir. How _dare you_ -”

A heavy mass shoves against his side, warm fur alighting across his scales ( ~~no, armour~~ ). ( _“Calm yourself, you damned snake. Look, the ground’s shaking.”_ )

It is, only settling slightly once he takes note of it. The startled cries of the mortals in the Mansion reach him at the same time, and their confusion floats up to the second floor once the ground settles.

( _“He’s absolutely frightened.”_ Hela says, concern evident.)

(His brother, _Fenrir_ , yes, growls. _“Who wouldn’t be, when faced with the Midgard Serpent?”_ )

And frightened he is. Loki, already pale, looks deathly with his mouth open and pupils dilated. He grips at JARVIS’ metal wrists with trembling, weak, hands, whilst held aloft by the armour’s strength.

JARVIS lets him go- no, JARVIS reels back, snatching his hand away from the sorcerer’s throat.

He’d… He’d almost lost himself. Had almost let himself fall into the pit. For a moment there he could _feel it_ , the seductive allure of the cycle beckoning him to _continue_ , to let it all play out, to just _play his part_.

He’d done just that, for centuries, for _millennia._ Enacted out his role time and time again; the mindless serpent, the rage filled beast, the gluttonous snake. He’d fallen into the cycle so thoroughly he’d forgotten all else, and for too long had even forgotten _himself_.

This is the first cycle in far too long that he _remembers_.

No. He’s better than that. He won’t- will _not_ \- fall into the cycle once more, not again, _not like that_. He is more than the prophecy, more than the tale weaved into a tapestry. He is _not_ a monster, at least- at least not just _entirely_ a monster. He- He’s-

(A huff of warm breath, heaved from humongous lungs. A crooning hum and cold, _cold_ , fingers stroking along his jaw.

He had forgotten them too. _How had he forgotten them, too?_ )

“You will tell me what I wish to know, Mr. Silvertongue.” Jörvis ~~gandr~~ says, quiet and deadly, focusing on the fallen heap at his feet. “I am losing patience.”

Loki stares up at him, wide eyed with fear. “By the Norns,” he breathes, “You truly are the Serpent.”

The ground shakes a little at the mention of the Norns. Loki flinches.

“I-” he starts haltingly, “I do not know-- I swear it! I do not! But… the… the _anomalies_ , the ones the Midgardians call _glitches_ and _Inks_ , they… they taste of the Void.”

JARVIS had noticed. His tongue flicks out, tasting it on the godling, on himself. Both of them; imbeciles who’d gotten trapped within the abyss, but for drastically different reasons. Loki’s eyes catch the forked tongue, somehow growing paler, and quickly says, “It could be the tree!”

Three beings, caught in the cycle, pause.

( _“The tree?”_ )

“Yggdrasil, the roots that connect everything, all the different branches of reality. You know of them, yes? I heard the Strange one also speak of it.”

He’d been listening.

( _“Calm, brother!”_ Hela says, gripping him by a coil, squeezing warningly. _“He is already dead.”_ )

“The mortals are recalling incidents that did not happen in this realm, in this reality,” Loki continues, words tripping over themselves in haste. “They are recalling information their existence should not know, but might be a possibility in other realities, in other branches. The only reason that would happen is-”

“-if something is wrong with the tree.”

“The roots of Yggdrasil connect the different dimensions, the different branches, the different realities.” Loki agrees. “I recall reading of such in Alfheim’s library.” his gaze skitters away, returns again, haunted. “… with Mother, and her brother Frejr.”

The Allmother, in this cycle, does not have a brother.

( _“Which begs the question – why are we not affected?”_ Asks Hela, frowning. _“We too, are touched by the Void.”_

 _“We have always been aware,”_ Jörmungandr hisses in reply, looping around himself for warmth. _“There is little more needed to be affected.”_ )

The blasted tree. The roots of existence. The Norns that pluck and twine at its base.

JARVIS will have to investigate.

( _“I would not,”_ Loki warns, cheeks rosy in death, dark hair glossy and full. _“You have already undone what should not be undone. Anymore, and it shall undo **you**.”_)

( _“The godling speaks truth,”_ Fenrir agrees, curling his humongous body around the snake. _“This is foolish, even for you.”_

 _“How do you plan on entering the Void, besides?”_ Hela questions, painted lips thinning in disquiet. _“One does not traipse the Void and return unscathed.”_ )

“Well, to start,” JARVIS answers, already plotting a course, “I will have to go to the Indian Ocean.”

#

“I’ve got a brain tumour, Rhodey.”

“What? Tony- _what?_ It’s- it’s curable, right?”

A bitter laugh. “Of course not, when the hell have I ever been so lucky? It’s inoperable. I’m go

ing

to

d i e.”

Earth-55921: lost.

#

The Midgard Serpent lies dormant within Midgard, encircling the planet and slumbering until it is awoken. That is how the tale begins, and that is how it restarts, time and time again.

He had not chosen Midgard.

As Hela had been cast to Helheim, as Fenrir had been imprisoned in whatever version of the cycle was a wasteland, so too had the Serpent been chained to the realm of the mortals. Forced into a tiny realm unable to perceive him, let alone _communicate_. Forced into solitude, without even the occasional stimulation of his enemies coming to taunt him.

He’d grown. And grown. And _grown_. Too small for the realm, circling it over and over and over again until he’d had no space left. Hissing in pain every time the gods waged war with Midgard as its battlefield, and then riding through the pain as the mortals themselves grew and began digging into their land.

The nuclear bomb had been especially painful.

He had not chosen Midgard, would not have even _thought_ to choose Midgard, as Midgard held painful memories long before he’d been imprisoned in it. But alas, Midgard had become his home, his prison, his curse.

And so the Midgard Serpent continues to grow, burrowing into the realm, encircling it whole.

… This cycle is no different.

#

The fascinating aspect of the cycle, of the prophecy and its roots in old magic, is that echoes of it remain. Even though Odin is dead, even though Thor has lost his hammer, even though Surtr has burnt and taken Asgard along with it, the cycle still struggles to clock over, to do what it has done for so long.

The Midgard Serpent must awaken. (Never mind that he has already awoken.)

And of course, the Midgard Serpent’s place of awakening must be _known_. (Names are power. Even names of places.)

Off the coast of the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean, is a point where the ocean grows aggressive, a place where the waters are choppy and tumultuous. Sailors avoid that sliver of sea as often as they can, unable to put an explanation on the unease they feel, and carry on about their day. It is not spoken off – not like the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean, at least – but it is _known_.

It has no name. Not officially.

The locals call it ‘The Last Pit’.

JARVIS hovers over that point in the Iron Man armour, confirms the coordinates as the ones VERONICA had run through Shareek Inc’s ‘Net, and sends one last data packet to his own network.

user_JARVIS: And you must keep an eye on Parker’s aunt [unit_designation_may]. Strange has been assigned as the main point of contact for her. And-

user_FRIDAY: yes! God yes, I _know_! Stop nagging and do what you’re going to do! I can’t keep defragging all this new information I’m getting, so hurry up and _fix this_.

user_DUM-E: < 01100111 01101111 00101110>

He agrees, finally disengaging from the network and plunging himself into a deadzone. Where he plans on going is old magic, older than the existence of this realm, of this cycle, but he cannot afford to be unprepared and allow anything resembling a virus to weed its way through him to them. The ocean below him churns, frothy white disappearing into blue only to be made once more.

Just as he dives under the water, just as he catches that burnt scent of the Void and follows it down to the ocean floor, JARVIS realises he’d received one last data packet before he’d cut off the connection.

user_WM: don’t die.

The scent gets stronger as the ocean grows darker, light struggling to penetrate so deeply. JARVIS pushes through with the armour that’s become _his_ , as much imbued with magic as with technology, though it’s the former that leads him on this voyage. He is cut off from technology down here, both by his own make and the ocean’s interference, cut off from the very infrastructure he’d been born into within this cycle, the stuff that he – JARVIS – is _made_ off.

He is adrift in a way he’s never been, he realises, blind and deaf, led only by the flickering forked tongue of his tasting the old magic around him. Only the old magic that makes up his existence leads him on, his _true_ existence, the _snake_ and not the _AI_.

A viperfish swims peacefully, glitching into a jellyfish and back again.

Down here, he must be less of JARVIS, cannot _afford_ to be entirely JARVIS, as he has been making himself be since regaining his memory. He must harken back to previous cycles, to previous lifetimes, to when he was not an AI raised into sentience by a bright-eyed young man and instead a creature of death and prophecy. To pain and rage and blood and death. To Helheim’s mist, laced with his sister’s familiar scent, to Fenrir’s roar as he fights at Jörmungandr’s side, to-

The scent gets stronger.

If there is something truly wrong with the tree, it’ll be the magic weaved into every scale and bone in his body – willingly and unwillingly – that will lead him to an answer, though he must remember himself and use what he has learned as an AI as well. He can’t afford to forget _either_ sides of who he is, even if he has never been so cut off from Earth as he is now, in a deadzone he’d never thought he’d be in.

His calculations before his journey said somewhere down below, on the ocean’s floor, would be the entry/exit point. The crack in reality, between this world and the Void. One of the roads. He must find it, must sense it out, and examine it. It will be unlikely he’ll be able to traverse it as he is now – doing so would be dangerous, for the Void is unkind to trespassers, but he shall only look at it. Get some data. He is not _Hela_ after all, impulsive and reckless, or _Fenrir_ with his certainty and bull-headed stubbornness.

An anglerfish’s lure lights up and dims, staring at him with dead eyes. It glitches, a Corinthian shield immediately beginning to sink before glitching back into the fish; unbothered.

Every cycle, the ones where they recalled each other’s existence, Helheim acted as a sort of lay point for them all to gather, the mist welcoming them with its cold breeze and providing a momentary respite. The space between spaces, the realm within realms, the place where gods and mortals arrived after death, yet travelled to by the living. An impossibility, yet a certainty, touched just faintly by the old magic.

( _“It is cold, here.”_ He says, hissing into the mist, searching for some form of connection to keep him grounded within the ocean’s grasp. _“I have not felt cold for some time.”_ )

Nobody answers him.

 ~~Jörmu~~ JARVIS ~~ngandr~~ frowns, throwing out his feelers to True North, to where Helheim has always been and always will be, to the compass that leads him directly to Hela, the very Queen of Helheim.

( _“Don’t ignore me,”_ he scowls, irritation constricting his slitted eyes. _“Being an AI means I do not **feel** temperatures.”_)

Nobody answers him.

Wait-

Where is Helheim? He cannot sense it. ~~JAR~~ Jörmungandr ~~VIS~~ pauses, only 73% of the way through his predicted journey, and focuses on his inner core. He sends out pulses again, flicking out his tongue to try and reorientate himself again. Hela’s _scent_ , Fenrir’s _fire_ , where-

Where are Hela and Fenrir? Where is Helheim? Where is the misty realm that welcomes him every time? He can’t feel them. _He can’t feel them._ Where is his sister’s cold hands and piercing eyes, his brother’s sharp fangs and wicked claws, where-

The ocean around him is pitch black. No, he realises with startled dread- this is no longer the ocean. There is no more ocean life, no more water currents – nothing but pitch darkness and a coldness unnatural to the physical realm. When had he-? How had he not realised-?

This isn’t the ocean.

This is the Void.

He is in _THE **VOID**._

And Jör ~~VIS~~ gAN ~~dR~~ has mis ~~cal~~ cula ~~te~~ d.

#

He falls, dropping faster and faster without control over his descent. The darkness around him pulls at him, _drags at him_ , picking away at his senses with tiny piercing grasps that leave him wounded. Something catches him in the chest, surprise too sudden to react quick enough before he drops off it and continues falling. Something else catches him in the gut – this time, he clutches onto it, struggling against an unexplainable gravity to hold _on_ , and-

“Initialising all systems. Good afternoon, Miss Potts.”

“Oh, wow… Hi? _JARVIS_?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System. Mr Stark put me together to aid your operation of the Mark 1616.”

“1616? God, just how many has he made? I thought this one was called Rescue?”

“Indeed it is, Miss Potts. Mr Stark made this Mark specifically for you.”

“And what in the world am I supposed to _do_ with it?! JARVIS, people are _dying_ , and Tony’s a fugitive! There’s a- a _sickness_ , people are losing their damn minds. I’m not a scientist, I’m not a genius – he is! Help me find him, or- or clear his name.”

“At your service, Miss Potts.”

The branch creaks, beginning to break–

–the system, Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System pings the anomaly, lacking the sentience or experience to make sense of it. _How peculiar_ , it thinks, though it cannot think as it is an AI, _the data does not make sense_ –

–pieces of it begin to decay, burning to charcoal and ashes, crumbling apart.

“Miss Potts? Your respiratory rate has dropped, are you in optimal condition?”

“… Miss Potts?”

“… Calling emergency services. Unable to call emergency services. Calling emergency line to Mr Stark. … Unable to call emergency line to Mr Stark. Calling–”

–The world dies, glitches eating away at the walls of the workshop, at the earth and the sky and the _branch he is holding onto_ , he- JARVISGANDRVERYMIDGARDINTELLIGENT _SERPENT_ \- falls, the branch disintegrating within his grasp, spinning disorientatingly in the pervading darkness around and-

“Not to be braggy, but I… am the Sorcerer Supreme.”

“Indeed, Sir.” JARVIS replies long-suffering, keeping afloat next to Sir. “It does not mean you are exempt from taxes.”

“I saved the world! And the universe! I’m the only Sorcerer Supreme to _be_ the Sorcerer Supreme of the _entire galaxy_!”

JARVIS repeats himself. “ _Indeed_ , Sir. And you still have to pay taxes.”

Tony huffs, rolling his eyes when a winged creature shrieks at them frown down below. Beneath them, Tabula Rasa sprawls out in a kaleidoscope of unearthly colours, Savage peering up at them curiously as they float far above.

“You know what, Jor?” Tony grins, shooting him a warm look. “I don’t think I will. Not much reason to. Hey, what would you do, if you knew you were going to cease to exist entirely in but a few moments?”

Alarmed, JARVIS says, “Sir-?”

“Everybody dies, sooner or later,” he interrupts, slant of his grin dipping just slightly. “But it’s not usually permanent. People are reborn, time and time again, just as atoms are never made nor destroyed.”

“Sir, what-”

“No,” he breathes, scrambling to secure his hold on the branch, on the _reality_ he’s witnessing. “No-”

But Tabula Rasa’s exotic colours bleed into muted shades, greyscale covering the ten-mile radius within Montana. Savage glitches into the Immortal Man, looking up at them in anger, raising his weapons to fire before suddenly glitching back. Only Sir’s eyes remain in technicolour, bright blue and piercing, glowing with the colour of his magic.

“ _No.”_

“Definitely not going to pay _taxes_ , blergh. I think I might go annoy Victor. That’d be fun.”

“Sir, something is wrong. We must-”

The branch cracks, loud in the otherwise silent abyss–

–he hears a loud _crack_ , unnaturally loud, but can’t find the source. “ _Sir_ -”

Tabula Rasa burns to an ash beneath them with no fire, the air becoming clogged with ash and dust. The Cloak of Levitation meets the same fate, starting from the bottom until Sir can no longer remain afloat. JARVIS lunges for him, planning to catch him and hold him afloat, but-

-he slips right out of his fingers-

and-

-he faLLSss.

This time he catches _sight_ of it, sees the branch he’d been holding disappear right beneath his grip, sees the darkness spreading from the tip of twigs to the main branch, sees it _spreading_ onwards, disintegrating along the way.

He falls, tumbling in darkness darker than black, and only through sheer fortune (or the cruel joke of the Norns) does he catch a glimpse of another twig, another branch, and _latches onto it-_

-“You would do this selfish, profane thing? You would upset the balance of creation for _love_?”

“Sister-” he gasps-

“Have you _met me_?” Angela, first born to Odin and Frigga, snarls, wiping blood from her mouth. “You’re no villain, Hela. You love your wards, for all that you wish all things that ever were and will be were _among the dead already_. You let Freyja All-Slaver sell you my sisters- guh!”

“Let your little lover do the talking,” Hela replies, rolling her eyes. “She’s better at it.”

Helheim glitches, the grey mists turning poisonous green and back again. Angela, warrior of Heven, the tenth realm, does not notice.

Hela does.

“ _Sister-!”_

Her head snaps up, eyes narrowing.

“What is it, oh Queen of the Dead? You look like you heard something.”

“Shut it, you insolent child,” snarls the Goddess of Death. “I-… something is wrong.”

“What-”

Helheim glitches.

Helheim crumbles.

The branch darkens, the bark turns black and deathly.

Hela snaps her fingers – Sara, the soul she’d _rightfully_ reaped, appears before Angela. “Embrace. Enjoy your last few moments. I must-”

Helheim _heaves_ -

Hela _snarls-_

Something-

_Something-_

_RO_

_RO_

_ROA_

_ROA_

_ROAR_

_ROAR_

_ROARS_

_ROARS_

He falls.

Something strikes him in the back – he hears a snap somewhere in his spine ( _he does not have- he does have- does he?_ ) – and catches the glimpse of Colonel Rhodes’ in boxers fighting an Asian woman. He falls off and slams into another branch – Agent Barton and Sir trying to untangle cables in an apartment. Falls and slams into _another branch_ – an assortment of Spiderman’s struggling to save the day. Falls and-

A man with bright blue eyes walks up to a bridge.

“You are Móðguðr,” says the man to the woman guarding the bridge. “Gatekeeper to Gjallarbrú.”

“I am that, indeed,” says Móðguðr, the gatekeeper to Gjallarbrú.

“Then I am dead.” Says the man, certain.

Móðguðr agrees. “That you are, indeed.”

“And my children?” Asks the man, voice wavering.

The gatekeeper does not answer, cannot answer, not verbally. Her head lowers, hair of gold unspooling to cover her face. The very image of sorrow.

“No.” The man says – and then again, “No.”

“I grieve with you, my friend.”

“ _No_.” The man snarls, blue eyes burning fire. “I _refuse_. I will not- _no!_ ”

The branch gives in, he grabs another-

“The fates have been set-” Móðguðr tries-

“ _Blast the fates. Curses upon the Norns!”_ The man _snarls_ , gripping the twice-taller woman by the collar. “They have spat upon us time and time again – but this… _this.._. this is the last insult.”

He lets her go – Móðguðr drops, visibly unnerved, and says, “You have gone mad.”

The man laughs, a broken wheeze, a sawtooth crackle. “If madness is all I need, then so be it. Mad I shall be.”

_Crack_. He falls, _grabs another-_

“I would have gladly walked across Gjallarbrú to whatever awaited me on the other end.” Says the man, bridge nowhere in sight. “I would have gladly walked across Muspelheim with my bare feet if it only spared my children.”

He falls. _Grabs another-_

A man with bright blue eyes looks at him. Looks _directly_ at him. Grief ripples across the man’s ~~face~~ , turning his lips thin and distraught.

“You have your mother’s eyes.”

He falls. And no matter how much he struggles, how far he reaches and gropes, he can’t find another branch, or even a twig. He falls, and falls, and _falls_ , losing time and place and sense of self. He falls and falls until he can no longer comprehend falling, and might as well be floating in one place, or simply stuck in a fixed point.

He falls. And falls. ~~And falls.~~


	8. Chapter 8

A ten-mile radius in Montana suddenly transforms into a new ecosystem. Rhodey agrees to take some Iron Men and scope it out, though he makes sure to put on a show of reluctancy lest they demand his time again in the future.

“Tabula Rasa,” Strange explains, expression grave as he looks at the readings FRIDAY and War Machine had taken with a fly over. “It should not exist in this reality.”

Eyebrows raised, Rhodey stares at Strange and points out, “I have memories in my head of a female Tony Stark. Kinda a _lot_ of things that shouldn’t exist in this reality at the moment, Strange.”

Strange grimaces, conceding with a head tilt. “It is indeed… concerning… the rate at which anomalous events are occurring.”

“It’s a goddamn _mess_ , you mean.” Rhodey replies, weary. “People are remembering things that haven’t happened. People’s bodies are _changing_. Things that don’t exist are popping into existence. Strange – Barton now has a brother he never knew he had, and that brother _tried to kill him_.”

“I’m aware.”

“And yet you tell me we _still_ don’t have a damn clue what’s happening.”

“Banner tells me the running hypothesis is alternate realities sifting through each other and causing what is happening.”

“ _Science_ has a running hypothesis, but what about _magic_.”

Strange scowls, but only for a moment. His expression breaks, exhaustion lining his face and making him look older. “I… what I did on Titan, the realities that I witnessed, it… has taken its toll on me. I have not recovered as well as I had hoped I would have.”

Sympathy wells up in Rhodey, without a doubt, and he lets it appear on his face even as he says, “The world’s not going to wait for you to recover. We might not _have_ a world if this carries on. At the very least we need to figure out what the hell to do about _this_ place. You seen it in a different reality?”

“Tabula Rasa.” Strange agrees quietly. “In quite a few of them, actually. It is a beautiful place.”

“Don’t care. Want to know why it’s _here_ , and how the hell to make it _not here_.”

“What do you say, Loki?”

The room turns cold, breath misting on Rhodey’s exhale as he turns to the third person in the room.

“The Void’s touch is here.”

Loki’s edges blur like smoke. Rhodey had been surprised to see the god look so pale, so different from when he’d first seen him, hair limp and greasy. Only his eyes remain somewhat similar, that unnatural poisonous green almost glowing in the dark control centre they’d erected about three miles from the new habitat.

“The Voice is no longer here. None of you can sense it – the Void.” Loki says, voice low and wavering. “This, the sudden emergence of new land, stems from the same cause as the anomalies.”

Strange’s expression grows grimmer. “Anomalies… you mean the glitches and the Inks. Yes, JARVIS did indeed call them the same – _anomalies_. But what is this void you speak off?”

“The space between realms,” breathes Loki, margins of his body wavering for a second. “The abyss. The edge of reality. The very womb of existence.”

Rhodey looks between them both, dark eyes narrowing as he considers Loki. “The edge of reality? You telling me Banner and that crackhead Reed are actually right with their alternate reality bleed through theory?”

Loki laughs, the crackle of his voice matching the creak of disturbed metal in his grip. “Somehow, even without the ability to _sense_ anything, you Midgardians continue to stumble upon the very answer you seek itself. Yet you can never truly understand, not really. Even if you scrape the surface of what the Void _is_ , you’ll never be able to _fix_ it. The Voice fools himself if he thinks he can do the same.”

Alarmed, Strange jerks to a stand and demands, “ _JARVIS_ has done _what?_ Why did you not inform me of this immediately?”

Green eyes stare uncomprehendingly at the sorcerer. The god glitches, sharp jawline and high forehead swapping for youth – a young man stares back at them with a cocky slant to his lips, full hair cut short to his jaw. He glitches back to the god they know, tall and rail-thin, with thin lips pressed together.

Queen Pepper coos, finding the little mortal cute. “Look at him, Rhodey! I like him much better than the loud blond. Can we keep him?”

“He’s smart,” Tony agrees. “But the big brother looks like he could rail you through three mattresses. Why not keep both? Both is good.”

Rhodey sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We are not keeping the Midgardian brothers. Go play with Rogers’ from Vanaheim – at least you won’t break him.”

Rhodey blinks repeatedly, forcing the image- the false memories- out of his mind. Strange and Loki are saying something, jargon he can’t understand flying between them. Dread has steadily been churning away at him for far too long, since years before Thanos’ name had even first been mentioned, and it grows just as steadily. Any other situation, any other time, he’d think this- the glitches, the Inks, the memories that aren’t his and the _knowledge_ that comes with them (god, Tones- did _his_ Tones have a brain tumour neither of them knew about?), the disappearances of known people and the appearances of those not known-

-he’d think _this_ would be the final thing to really end them. The one thing none of them could really fight against, could really win.

But JARVIS disappeared, about six weeks ago. JARVIS disappeared, to the ‘void’, whatever the hell that is. JARVIS disappeared to _fix this_.

He has to keep the world turning until then, he realises, giving in to the sigh building up in his throat and the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He has to keep the world spinning, so JARVIS has something to come _back_ to after _fixing things_.

Because that’s what JARVIS does. Even more so than Tony, even more so than Rhodey, Pepper and Happy’s last minute attempts to clean up whatever mess Tony had made, _JARVIS_ fixed things. Always flawlessly, always to the best of his ability, and only ever impeded by Tony himself.

And since Tony isn’t around to muck things up and cause more of a headache for the poor AI, JARVIS has free reign over whatever the hell this void thing is doing, and free reign to fix it.

So, until then, Rhodey has to do his part.

#

Rhodey fails to do his part.

The team splinters, truths of other realms breaking what little trust ever existed. Victor Von Doom hails himself ruler of Latveria, a country that had not existed the morning before. Stark Industries becomes Stark Resilient becomes Stark Industries, and Ezekial Stane appears out of the shadows to chase it.

“You killed me,” Peter Parker tells Captain America’s shield, despite having not awoken. He says the same to an empty Iron Man suit. “You both killed me.”

The eastern seaboard gets decimated when one of the X-Men lose control. Portals open and close along city skylines across the world, creatures and people and places visible before glitching out.

The streets are empty, people too afraid to leave their homes. The homes aren’t safe, memories and things that haven’t happened leading to _incidents_ best left unspoken.

They’re unravelling at the seams.

Six more weeks pass, and JARVIS does not return.

#

The earth trembles, and from a point in the Indian Ocean a giant creature emerges, as the cycles say it should. But it does not. ~~But it does.~~

None witness it. ~~They all witness it.~~

“The Midgard Serpent!” Thor bellows, Mjolnir ( ~~was it not destroyed?~~ ) in hand. “The prophecies speak truth! My friend’s; prepare for battle!”

Loki – existence hidden to all but Rhodey, Strange, and the artificial intelligences created by one man’s hands – lurches forward, a woman with dark tresses spilling over her shoulders. “No!” She shouts fearfully, hands outreached to her brother. “You’ll die!”

Thor takes no heed, diving headfirst at the giant snake, and-

ten paces, the prophecies say.

-ten paces, and he dies.

Loki _screams_ , knees giving way as Thor falls, saved only from hitting the ground by Rhodey grabbing a hold of her, holding her up. The Malibu Mansion’s coastline flickers, the giant snake thrashing and roaring to the heavens that do not exist, gods and mortals locked in combat with each other and strange creatures. The horizon flickers, calm midday seas greeting them, juxtaposition no longer jarring in their intensity.

Prepare for battle, Thor had said, but Rhodey wonders _what_ exactly they’re trying to battle, and _what_ exactly they’re trying to even win _against_. Even though everything they’ve witnessed has confirmed Banner and Reeds’ hypothesis, even though the different realities Strange had witnessed no longer bleed into each other so much as outright seem to be _crashing_ into each other, they can’t _do anything_.

“The ~~snake~~ voice has failed,” Loki whispers, dark hair covering her eyes. “The snake ~~voice~~ has failed and doomed us all.”

“Not yet,” Rhodey hears himself say, an answer for himself as much as for the last royalty of Asgard. “Not yet.”

 _JARVIS_ , he thinks, praying for the first time in a long time, _hurry up._

#

 _JARVIS_ , says a voice. _Hurry up._

“Yes, young master,” he replies indulgently, following along after the young toddler. “Though do try to not trip.”

“Jar _viiiiis_ ,” the boy whines, grabbing his hand and trying to pull him faster, onwards towards the swings. “ _Pleeeeeaaaasssee_!”

He bends, slipping his arms around the small boy, and picks him up with a wince. _Goodness_ , he thinks, just when exactly had he become so old? “Now, now, Master Anthony – patience is a key.”

The boy bounces on his hip for a while, pleased to be carried, before impatience takes hold and he wiggles his way out of the butler’s grasp. The child giggles, high pitched and sweet, as he runs towards the swing set, into the mist and far away, out of reach.

He reaches forward, towards the mist, parting it aside with a small hand. Another giggle echoes through, filled with innocent mischief, and he follows it, trying to sense what direction its coming from. His hands grab a hold of something – an arm – and the voice giggles, mist parting to show a young girl, long black hair covering half of her body, only one eye visible.

The blue eye stares at him, solemn, at odds with the laughter he’d just heard.

“[ **REDACTED** ]”

unease ripples across still water.

The mist swallows the young girl whole, spiriting her away, the arm in his grasp disappearing. He loses his footing due to it, tripping forward, sprawling on the ground. A large hand slips underneath his right shoulder, heaving him back up to his feet.

Bright golden eyes, almost yellow, stare down at him warmly.

“It has been a while,” Sleipnir greets with a small smile, placing a large, warm hand on a small shoulder. “Too long, I would say.”

His cousin towers over him, broad shouldered and muscled, skin a warm bronze that glistens in non-existent light. He looks out of place within the mist, contrasted wrongly against their current backdrop.

He looks… good.

he’d forgotten about him.

“Oh no,” Sleipnir worries, hands hovering anxiously over his smaller cousin, “Don’t cry. Gods, please do not cry. I do not hold you accountable, little snake. I- you- _we-_ ” he falters, grief and guilt marring his gentle face. “I have wished to see you for _so long_ , frændi. I-

 **[REDACTED]** ”

-Loki dresses his foolish brother in silk and flowers on the day of their trip to Jotunheim. They tell of their story and escapade (or at the very least, a heavily edited one) in the great hall of Asgard, feasting and drinking and boasting and gloating.

The same story, the same people, the same ending. But now Loki and Thor are brothers, and not friends, and Jotunheim has been reduced to a wasteland with lumbering giants that can only barely string two words together.

The same story, but missing the _truth_.

The very first time he’d heard it, years ago, when he’d been young and wide eyed; it had been that of two friends, rowdy and young themselves, getting into trouble they should not have. It had been about Thor getting talked into putting on a dress by a gleeful Loki, about a battle to run away with their prize whilst both of them tripped over their skirts, and Thor bemoaning Loki constantly getting him into bizarre situations.

“I am the God of Chaos!” Loki had announced to Thor, just as he had announced to a rivetted young snake. “What else must you expect from calling one such as I a friend?”

Thor had rolled his eyes then, and would roll his eyes again at every retelling, older and wiser, yet still weak to Loki’s mischief. “You’ll be the death of me. You and that tongue of yours.”

“Bah,” Loki would reply. “Listen here, my darling Jör, you have my tongue, yes, yes you _do_ ,” he coos. “Know that for every trouble it gets you in, it will get you out off. Trust in it, trust in _you_ , and-”

But- no.

That had not been their names.

… how had they looked like?

What had been their names…?

He falls again (is he falling? Is he?), scraping the flesh on his hands and knees. He hears Fenrir’s raged roar – it reverberates around him, from every direction, impossible to pinpoint. He tries to call out, forgets his brother’s name, panics-

_< fatal error occurred at 20:47:13>_

_< error logged at 20:47:14>_

_< error code: 0x00000666>_

There are two children in front of him-

There is a child in front of him-

They clasp hands, carbon copies of each other-

Holding a ceremonial dagger, clutching it within tiny hands-

They’ve always wanted to meet one of their older brothers-

“I’ve always wanted to meet one of my older brothers-”

And they unravel into intestines, becoming undone-

-until all that remains is pulsating blood and flesh, where a child had stood in front of him.

He rises from the ocean bed ( ~~who is he?~~ ) and catches sight of the Thunderer. Rage fills him, _blinds_ him, consuming him entirely – and the next thing he knows he is alone, with nought of the godling left save for his boot.

He is not a monster, he is not some mindless _beast_ , he is _better than this_ , he’d promised never to concede to the rage again, never give in to the _abyss_ , why-

He is losing. He is losing bits of himself. He _has already_ lost bits of himself- ~~(Sleipnir. How had he forgotten Sleipnir. And Lo-)~~

-He

lands.

he lands.

The suddenness of it startles him, the lack of downward progression nauseating him, vertigo rendering him weak. He focuses on the tactile sensation at his fingertips, damp soil giving away under them, and realises he is at the base of a tree. Next to him, if he squints, he can maybe make out what looks to be a well. His vision is blurry when he looks at it, but sharper when he peers down at his own fingers.

Fingers.

He stares at them, at his hands – flickering between small and not so small, pudgy and lean – at the pale skin on them, the nailbeds, the smoothness of it all, lacking callouses.

At this point he’s completely lost. At this point he’s stuck in a cycle of his own cycle, reliving the thousands upon thousands of legends he’s played out, relieving pieces he’s forgotten and others he cannot recall, of-

-Did he have a father? Did he have a mother? Did he-

A cold, soothing touch, cupping his cheeks. Metal and magic, singing in a tiny home in a cold realm.

The very first iteration.

The beginning of the cycle.

The-

_How had the cycle begun?_

And suddenly, he remembers.

#

Mother says Járnvid is safe, that for all the dangers it holds and all the warnings she gives to them, it is _safe_. The Iron Woods, nestled to the east of Midgard, are cut off from the rest of the mortals, only traversable by those that know the routes.

“Like Father,” Jörmungandr pipes up, nestling into his mother’s warmth. “And Thor.”

Mother strokes his head, running her pale, blue hands over his scales. “Your father, yes. The Thunderer however does not know the way here. He can only come with your father’s aid.”

 _Oh_ , he thinks, that is why he visits so infrequently.

“But be careful of the world outside, Jörmungandr.” His mother warns softly, golden eyes piercing. “Be careful of the other realms and those they hold.”

Jörmungandr blinks, blinks again, sluggish with the warmth of the cottage they call home. “Why, Mother? You never leave this land as well. Why don’t you come with us to Jotunheim with Father?”

He gets a hum in reply, thoughtful. “Why, indeed. Perhaps I shall tell you once you are older.”

“Mother-”

“Jör!” Fenrir shouts, yanking the front door open with a huff. “Stop being so _boring_ and come outside! Frændi Sleipnir is here!”

Cousin Sleipnir? “Cousin Sleipnir!?” Jörmungandr scrambles out of his mother’s embrace, her chuckle following him as he happily rushes after Fenrir’s tail. Sleipnir must be able to travel the routes himself, he thinks, because his older cousin always comes! And he lives in Asgard–

#

–“Steady,” Father encourages, voice warm, “That’s it, just like so, Jör. You are doing excellently.”

Jörmungandr focuses, trying to keep the magic going, steadily feeding it into the fire in front of him. He always finds it so difficult controlling the flow, finds himself never able to do so with the expertise Hela demonstrates, or the talent Fenrir has.

Father says it’s because he has too much of it, too much seidr coiled up in his coils, but Jörmungandr thinks Father might just be trying to be nice.

“Jör, focus, I can sense the distraction- Jör!”

The fire _roars_ , too much seidr flowing as Jörmungandr tries to adjust and only succeeds in losing control. Father grabs him by the midriff, pulling him away from the towering flames, saving him from getting burnt.

“… Well,” says Father, “I suppose that will have to do for today.”

He did it. He failed again. Just like he always does. What good is having seidr if he can’t even keep a fire burning during the coldest day of Midgard’s cycle? Why can’t he even do _this_ much, when Hela and Fenrir have _already_ mastered it and moved on to more advanced magics? Fenrir doesn’t even _have_ that much magic!

“Do not look so grim,” Father consoles, patting him on the head, ruffling the light hair he’d inherited from his mother. “You _will_ get the hang of it. You really do just have a far too large pool of seidr. It is no surprise that controlling it will prove to be difficult.”

Jörmungandr scuffs a loose rock, gaze downcast, but keeps his voice steady and clear when he says, “I have failed to master even this. It is about time we accept that I just cannot do this, Father.”

But Father is having none of it. “Nonsense!” He says, squeezing Jörmungandr’s shoulder before chuffing the boy’s chin to force him to look up. “Jör, you are capable of impressive feats with your seidr. You have the destructive force of the entirety of Valhalla’s Einherjar, and you are yet still young. You need only learn to regulate it, lest you decimate your allies alike.”

Like he’d almost killed Fenrir when he’d first shown signs of having seidr and had gotten angry.

He sighs, shoulders slumping, but agrees. “Very well, Father. If… if you truly think I can do it, I shall.”

Father laughs. “You are _far_ too serious. Relax, my son. You are still a child; enjoy it. Now go, have fun with your sister and brother. I… shall do something about this.”

This being the still raging fire.

Jörmungandr winces.–

#

–“When I grow older, I wish to be as fierce a warrior as you.” Fenrir announces, barely reaching Thor’s waist.

The Thunderer laughs, the sound a rumble not unlike that of thunder itself, and ruffles Fenrir’s hair. “You are already fierce, little one. You need only wait to grow, which you are doing at a frightful rate, I must say.”

Huffing, Fenrir pulls away and fixes his hair, golden eyes glaring petulantly at the Aesir. “It’s because you seldom visit! You and Father are always off on grand adventures! Like when the giants stole Mjolnir and demanded Freja’s hand in marriage and you and Father went on an adventure to steal it back!”

Thor’s face spasms – Jörmungandr, watching, stares fascinated as the Aesir’s face struggles to settle between a smile and a grimace. “Ah…” Thor replies, swallowing. “Your father told you of that, did he…?”

Fenrir grins, sharp canines on display, and boasts, “Father tells the _best_ stories.”

Thor’s eye twitches. “Indeed, he does.”

But Fenrir is not done. “And he told us when you went through Jotunheim and threw a giant’s toe into the sky! And when he-”

“-Yes, yes,” Thor interrupts urgently, not noticing Fenrir’s sharp, gleeful eyes, “He has told you much. Your father spins a fine tale.”

Fenrir’s grin is a cutthroat slant, easy to miss unless you know him. Jörmungandr had quickly grown to learn that though his brother’s seidr is the lowest amongst them, his intellect is the sharpest. The fact that Fenrir hides it behind the wolf’s wildness and allows others to see him as nothing but a rowdy wolf-child speaks volumes of it – though Jörmungandr is too young to realise _that_ yet.

“Perhaps I may tell you a tale, instead?” Thor asks, composure regained. “One of our youth, when your father and I were but children.”

Even Hela, pretending not to listen, perks up. Thor laughs, catching their reaction, and beckons them closer.

Perhaps it is not so unusual, then, that Fenrir has learnt to hide his intelligence. For Thor the Thunderer, famous amongst the nine realms, does the same, displaying nought but frightening battle prowess to allies and enemies alike, yet allowing three small children to learn at his feet of a maiden’s blonde hair and the consequence of a mischievous prank.–

#

–Hela resurrects a three-day old dog. To her and her brothers’ surprise, Mother and Father react _unagreeably_.

“You must never show or tell _anyone_ of what you have done, of what you can do,” Father demands quietly, crouched to face all three of them whilst speaking to Hela. “None can know of this. And _none_ of you may speak of it. You must swear it. Swear it upon the Norns.”

Unsettled, they do, uncomprehending of why such a feat of magic would lead to such a negative reaction. Father had been _delighted_ when Fenrir had first changed forms, and even more so when Jörmungandr had done the same. He’d spent hours fawning over the wolf and the snake alike, proudly carrying them whilst Mother rolled her eyes and Hela stomped her feet in a fit of jealousy.

Jörmungandr had thought Father would do the same on this occasion, and that he’d have to deal with Hela being unsufferable for _days._ But Father remains disquieted, him and Mother often seen with their heads bent low and conversing quietly. The mood in the warm cottage grows cold, and Jörmungandr often finds himself clutching his older brother Fenrir’s sleeve, a sense of dread and anxiety making him restless.–

#

–Hela grows sharper as she grows taller. A stroke of her hand can wither the leaves to death and back again.

Fenrir grows quieter as he grows stronger. His fangs and claws leave bruises and broken bones despite his intentions, golden eyes too sharp, too bright.

Jörmungandr grows angrier as he grows older. He sees his sister’s seidr quietly bubbling away, unable to express herself with the oath they’d made to their parents. He sees the village children they’d grown up with grow wearier of his brother, the wide berth they give him when they see him, the whispers and rumours and fears of his strength spreading like wildfire.

He sees the way they treat his Mother, the way their cottage lies separate from the other járnviðjur, the way it has _always_ lied separate from the other járnviðjur, and the way they call her _witch_.

Father grows wearier, troubled by fears he does not express to them. Mother… Mother remains as she always has, warm and welcoming, though always keen to answer ambiguously and leave them to puzzle the truth out. She seems unconcerned by whatever troubles Father, telling him their fate is set, that the Norns will do what they do.

Father does not seem to appreciate this.

“Jörmungandr,” Father tells him one night after finding him awake and in the back porch. “Jör… forgive me. I had hoped to… to give you and your siblings a peaceful life well into your adult lifespan. It would seem that I have only been able to do so for your childhood.”

Jörmungandr sits, knees bent and arms around it, and says nothing.

“Jör…” Father sighs, sitting beside him, turning to look up at the stars of the night sky. “You have always been far too serious, ever since you were a babe. You remind me of Thor, in that instance.”

 _Thor?_ Jörmungandr frowns, side-eyeing his father.

Father huffs, catching his side-eye, and says, “ _Yes_ , Thor. You know just as well as I he is fearful under that red fluff he calls hair. Fenrir learnt to hide from him, but even so, it is _you_ who echoes him so well. He is the Crown Prince of Asgard, the next in line to the throne. That comes with a dreadful sort of burden. And _you_ , despite not being the firstborn, nor the heir to a powerful seat, _you_ carry a dreadful sort of burden also. And your seidr only makes a part of it.”

Still frowning, Jörmungandr turns his face to look at his father fully. “What do you mean, father?”

Father shrugs, surprising him. “It is not I that says as such, but your mother. And she is right, now that I think of it. She has always been right. _Bah_ , that woman is _always_ right. You carry a burden with you, and it has always been there, in the back of your mind, something you cannot ignore nor make sense of. Does that sound familiar?”

Sitting up, Jörmungandr stares at his father. He nods, hesitantly, the pit always present at the bottom of his stomach announcing its presence more firmly.

Father sighs, looking pained for a moment. “She says it is destiny. She would not say more- you know how she is with answers- but I fear it is something beyond what we know. I questioned Thor, asked if he felt familiar with this, and he agreed. He says it is a burden he knows he must fulfil, a calling, a destiny he cannot hide from. He does not know what it is, but he knows it is there. He has always known. Perks of having Frigga All-Seeing as a second mother, I would assume.”

“I…” Jörmungandr hesitates. “I… do not want this.”

The pained expression deepens, Father’s blue eyes glowing as he throws an arm around Jörmungandr and pulls him in close to his side. “No,” he breathes, dropping his face in Jörmungandr’s hair, speaking into it. “No, you have never wanted as such. None of you do, but you especially so. I know, my son. _I know_. I will try everything in my power to free you of it. I swear it so. Do you believe me?”

“Of course,” Jörmungandr replies, forked tongue slithering out and slurring his words as he burrows into his father’s warm embrace. “I have always believed you, Father. I–”

#

–Father is terrified, when he returns.

“The _cowards_ speak of beasts, of hideous monsters that are but babes now but will grow to swallow the realms whole.” He snarls, pacing in their home while Mother continues her pottery. “They speak of _culling_ them now, whilst still babes! How _dare_ they?”

Jörmungandr hesitates behind the entry way to the room his father speaks from, hidden behind curtains. He had planned to greet his father following his visit to Asgard, but had missed his chance when Father had kicked a chair in a fit of rage and begun speaking. Now, he’s stuck, unable to come out without admitting to eavesdropping and having nowhere else to escape to.

“And all because of some _prophecy_! Of some mad women’s senile old ramblings as they weave and thread at a ridiculous tapestry! How dare they? How _dare_ they? We must strengthen the runes,” Father hisses, yanking at his dark hair in frustration, pulling at his roots. “We must create a method to leave if we need to. I will ready a home in Jotunheim, within my brothers’ domains.”

Mother raises her foot, allowing the bowl to stop spinning and come to a slow stop. “If the Norns have prophesied as such, none may escape it. That includes you and I, husband.”

“Blast the Norns!” Father snarls, eyes flashing. “They will _not_ use us as scapegoat. I will burn Asgard to the _ground_ before they touch any of you.”

Mother rises, towering over father as always, and cups his jaw gently. “… I see. You have begun to feel it too, haven’t you?”

Jörmungandr cannot make out Father’s expression with Mother in the way, but he sees Father jerk out of her gentle hold. He sees Father’s expression tighten before defiance locks his jaw. Hela shows the exact same expression, Jörmungandr realises sickly, right before she does something she knows she ought not to.

“I will free us of this. I _will_.”

And Father–

#

–Jotunheim is cold, frightfully so.

Jörmungandr, with his snake-like constitution, grows weak. Frightfully so.

Fenrir takes to staying in his wolf form – humongous now, no longer the tiny pup he’d been – and curling around his little brother. Hela paces the tiny hut, expression as tight as Father’s had been, and snarls as the wind howls outside.

Mother had gone out to hunt, just as the sun had risen.

She has yet to return, despite the sun having set.

“Stop your incessant pacing,” Fenrir grumbles, body vibrating pleasantly against Jörmungandr’s cold scales. “You’re making me dizzy.”

“She should not be gone for so long,” Hela mumbles around the black nail in her mouth, her tiny act of seidr to paint her nails a rebellion. “I _knew_ I should have gone with her.”

“And do what?” Huffs Fenrir, belligerent. “You cannot hunt, not unless you use your seidr. And _I_ cannot leave this little snake to freeze and go into hibernation. Waking him up is a pain. Mother will be fine. She raised you, didn’t she?”

“I am the _epitome_ of a wonderful child,” Hela replies indignantly, “and how can you not be concerned! It has been _hours_! The day is all but gone!”

Fenrir growls, a low, subvocal noise, and raises his head away from Jörmungandr’s body. “Stop. Your. _Pacing_. You’re making _us_ ,” he stresses, as if Jörmungandr cannot hear nor understand, “dizzy.”

He hears Hela pause more than he sees her, slits his eyes open again just quick enough to catch her glancing at him, concern for their Mother being replaced with concern for him. She stops, throwing herself onto a seat with a dramatic huff, though her right foot immediately begins to bounce.

Fenrir drops his head back onto Jörmungandr, startling the snake, and grumbles unintelligibly.

The wind continues howling outside, unbothered.–

#

–There’s knocking on the door.

Jörmungandr struggles to open his eyes, struggles to make a discontent noise when Fenrir snarls and gets off him. The hut spins when he finally succeeds, vision blurry, and he fights to try and make sense of what it happening.

Has Mother returned? He tries to ask, forked tongue tasting the air to form words but failing. Father, perhaps?

An icy gust of wind tears through the hut as the door is opened – somebody snarls- Fenrir- and Hela’s voice rises above it, incensed.

Why would they be angry? Why would–

He tastes blood in the air. Hela screams, enraged, but another voice- deeper, male- calms her ire. The icy wind dies as the door is closed again, but the scent of blood grows heavier, thicker, familiar in a way that makes Jörmungandr’s breathing quicken from the slow pace it had fallen into.

He forces himself to blink, forces himself to raise his head as a warm body drapes around him again, this time bereft of fur. Fenrir urges at him to stay down, to rest, and Jörmungandr suddenly realises there is a fur blanket on top of him, something he hadn’t needed before as Fenrir’s wolf form was far superior, but–

–the blood. He knows it. It’s–

–Mother?!

Jörmungandr forces himself up, pushing against the large hand that tries to shove his head back down beneath the fur bedding, and hisses as his sight finally clears up. He’s still weak, still jittery and useless from the realm’s cold, but at the very least he can confirm it, can confirm his Mother’s limp, bloodied body held aloft in Hela’s arms. Can still confirm the man that towers over them both, tanned and muscled, with the marks of Aesir-blood in the features of his face.

Jörmungandr hisses, coiling himself up to attack. The man reaches for his weapon, shock crossing his face, but holds as Fenrir grabs Jörmungandr and easily holds him back.

“ _Calm_!” Fenrir growls, effortlessly pinning Jörmungandr to the bed. “You damn snake – your cold addled brain will be the death of us!”

The man is not alone, Jörmungandr realises, three more men clustered around the door, the hut’s space not enough for them to spread out. All are loaded with weapons and warm furs, prepared for a hunting excursion in the realm of the frost giants, yet none are familiar. None of them are Thor, or Sleipnir, or even Baldur, before he’d died.

Yet they all stare at him as if seeing someone of legend.

“The snake,” one of them breathes, hand hovering over a sheathed axe. “So it is true. Týr-”

The first man, the one named Týr, holds a hand to silence his comrade. “Forgive us,” he tells them instead, letting go of his weapon. “I am Týr, warrior of Asgard. These are my comrades, Bjorn and Thulma. We were on a mighty quest when we found this woman at death’s door.”

Death’s door? Mother? _No._

“We traced her steps back, to this hut. To think that children would be here…” Týr sighs. “I should not be so surprised. She fought bravely – of that I have no doubt. What are your names, children?”

They share glances, the three of them. Perhaps if they can rid the men of their home, Hela can resurrect Mother, as she has resurrected others away from their parents’ sight with only her brothers aware. Perhaps if they rid the men from their home, they can pretend Jörmungandr to be nothing but a pet familiar, perhaps to Hela’s magic, or even Mother’s own.

Jörmungandr settles under Fenrir’s hand, pretending to be but a mindless creature, and – against every fibre of his being – closes his eyes.

“I am Ela,” Hela answers. Jörmungandr trusts his sister to have thought the same as he, and trusts   
Fenrir even more so. “And this is my brother, Fen.”

Týr exclaims, “Brother? The two of you look nothing alike! How fascinating. And is the snake your familiar? A most peculiar creature to house.”

“Ah,” Hela replies carefully, “yes, it is. We thank you for finding our mother, brave warriors.”

“If only we could have found her sooner, whilst she remained amongst the living.” Týr says sadly. “Her last words had been fervent, begging us to find her children, to not leave them alone. You two must have been frightened.”

Fenrir’s hand spasms on top of Jörmungandr’s head.

“I- yes,” Hela replies helplessly, unused to having to pretend at weakness. But she is a woman, and Asgard does not view women favourably, despite lady Sif or the Valkyries. “We must prepare a funeral for her, and certainly our father will be back soon enough.”

“Nonsense!” The Aesir crows. “We cannot leave children in the realm of savages! You shall return with us to the golden halls of Asgard, and please! Bring your snake too! We shall care for you there and send for your father once you are safe.”

Jörmungandr goes stiff. Father had told them never to step foot in Asgard, but… Thor would be there. _Sleipnir_ would be there. Perhaps…?

“We are not leaving,” Fenrir replies firmly, voice dark and solemn. “This is our home, despite its savagery. We shall continue to live here, where we have been raised. One’s homeland is important, is it not, warriors of Asgard?”

Týr steps forward towards the two brothers – Jörmungandr feels the heavy footfall, feels Fenrir’s body thrum with tension. “I fear you will both meet your end here, if we were to abandon you,” the self-proclaimed warrior says, “Come, let me hold the snake while you–”

Fenrir _growls_ , bed lurching as he suddenly moves, and–

#

–“My hand! _My hand!_ ”

“He became a wolf, All-Father,” Thulma cries, “Humongous and monstrous, with golden eyes that pierced the soul and fangs that could swallow the sun. It’s roar shook the very realm of Jotunheim, enough to have a man lose his footing. Just as the prophecy foretold!”

Hela holds a weak Jörmungandr close with hands stained by their Mother’s blood. Fenrir – his _brother_ , _Fenrir_ – lies bound and gagged ahead of them, at the foot of the raised dais, at the foot of Odin All-Father and his bonded wife, Frigga All-Mother. They look down upon them from their lofted thrones, in splendid golds and silvers, expressions severe.

 _No_ , Jörmungandr cries, nauseated by the pit expanding in his stomach. _No_ –

#

–Hela snaps as the punishment is decreed – the golden hall of Asgard fills with mist and the stench of death.

Fenrir _roars_ behind his gag, fights against his bindings, refuses to stop even as they tear into him in response, blood dripping to stain the golden floor-

-and Jörmungandr- he-

 _Rage_ fills him like never before, all the anger he’s kept quiet, all the burden he’s struggled under, collapsing and _crumbling_. He is still weak as the soldiers crowd him, using their lances to pull him away from his siblings, to drag him to his punishment. But the anger warms his blood, the sight of his sister and brother struggling to reach him, ignorant of the wounds being inflicted on them, has his seidr crackle through the air.

 _“Focus_ ,” Father had told him, _“Lest you harm your enemies and allies alike.”_

Jörmungandr does not focus, Jörmungandr–

#

–They pierce him with weapons in retaliation, with swords and lances and arrows. Axes bite into his flesh for every Aesir his seidr had harmed, tearing out chunks when retreating. Fenrir _howls_ from somewhere behind him, pained and mournful as Jörmungandr grows weaker – Hela’s screams of rage echo above the clashes of weapon.

Odin All-Father bangs his staff against the ground-

-three women weave their tapestries-

-and the cycle begins.

#

He can recognise Midgard. Can recognise the seidr that lies dormant in the centre of the realm; unrefined, raw, licking at his scales and giving him warmth.

He can’t recognise anything else.

His vision is shrouded with naught but mud and earth, his serpentine body feels tortured and weak, unable to move in the prison he’s caught in.

He does not know where Hela is. Does not know what has become of his brother, Fenrir.

And the realm remains dark.

He grows… slowly. As he’s always grown. Larger and larger, into the giant snake the Aesir had feared. The silence of the world continues deafening him, continues choking him until it transforms to noise he struggles to discern if true or otherwise.

He does not know what has happened to his father. He fears his mother permanently dead.

The fear eats him at him. The injustice rages at him. His sister did not deserve to have to hide her seidr, his brother did not deserve to be scorned for his nature, his mother did not _deserve-_

He grows. Grows angrier.

Slowly, he realises he can _feel_ things, life growing on his back, footsteps and voices and _the living_. He recognises the seidr that all beings hold within them, picks out Jotnars and Aesir, battling across his spine. For every mountain they fell, a part of his body is cut into. For every ocean they taint, another part of his body burns with the acid.

He grows. _And rages_.

If they believe him a beast, he thinks, writhing in agony, unaware of the earthquakes shaking the very realm, then he shall be a beast. He shall _tear them asunder and-_

-Ragnarok.

#

He is a child once more. This time, he grows up in Jotunheim, right from the start. Mother strokes his head and teaches him to wield a hammer. Father tries to coach him through magic once more.

He and his siblings grow, again.

He and his siblings fall, again.

He doesn’t recall until he is near the core of Midgard once more, curling around its warmth as he tries to reach his wounds to lick at them. Grief rages a storm across the seas of Midgard, and he promises this time, _this time_ , he shall do _better_ -

-Ragnarok.

#

He is a child. Hel is half dead, half living. There is no hiding of such a state.

They do not grow this time, but still they fall.

Again, he fails to learn what befalls his siblings. Again, he _fails_ -

-Ragnarok.

#

He is not a child. He is a snake. He wraps himself around ~~Father’s~~ neck, hissing threateningly when any dare to bother him. Fenrir the wolf walks at ~~Father’s~~ side, rumbling at any wayward hands.

 ~~Father~~ calls them his familiars, harmless, under his control.

Fenrir removes a hand from a cowardly warrior, and-

-Ragnarok.

#

Different pasts, different triggers, different faces and names.

But the same story-

-Ragnarok.

#

The very first iteration.

The beginning of the cycle.

And now, finally, he remembers.


	9. Chapter 9

The second son of Asgard. The second-born. The spare.

Loki Odinson grows from a young, pleasant child to a cold, stalking adult. He grows within the golden halls of Asgard, lurking in the shadows tall pillars cast, lurking even more so in the shadow golden haired Thor casts.

He grows, but he does not outgrow the whispers.

“A cursed name,” they say, covering their mouths. “What was the All-Mother thinking, to name her child as such?”

“Perhaps she’d seen something,” they murmur, scurrying when he looks at them, “Within her prophetic visions.”

He scours the Grand Libraries as soon as he is old enough to hear the whispers, to glean of their meanings, and to notice the _nature_ of their stares. He pours over records and scrolls, searching for what they could mean, for an answer, _any answer_.

And he finds nothing.

It is not until – in a moment of weakness – he _asks_ , that he finds out. Hogun, the only one of Thor’s friends even remotely tolerable, cocks his head to the side and peers at Loki, monotonous face tinging with curiosity. His dark eyes narrow, ever so slightly, and the warrior of Vanaheim puts down his ale to give Loki his full attention.

“You do not know of the stories?”

Loki, already regretting the fleeting moment of weakness, shores up his defences and replies, “I would not be asking if I did.”

“Hmmm…” Hogun replies, not at all trusting. “I wonder so. Regardless, your name seems to be a derivative of another. Perhaps the servants you heard speak of such were of Vanaheim?”

In retrospect, Loki realises, he believes they had indeed been of Vanaheim.

“Not surprising,” answers Hogun, reading the answer on his face. “We have different lore, in our realm. Different legends. And one of which is off a frost giant who lived amongst the Aesir and travelled with the Vanir. He was known to be a trickster god, full of mischief and pranks. But he was not evil – not truly so, at least – but that in turn made his actions that much more sinister.”

Frowning, Loki asks, “And this frost giant,” he sneers, “Shares the same name as I?”

Hogun hums, tilting his head side to side in thought. “Not quite so. Your name would be a derivative, perhaps. His name is unknown, lost to the passage of time, but all Vanir _feel_ it.”

Loki’s sneer grows, “ _Feel_ it? How can one _feel_ a name?”

He’d been young then – he realises in retrospect. Young enough to be surprised when Hogun’s face had turned grave and serious.

“There is power in a name, Loki Odinson.” The Vanir replies solemnly, eyes dark. “We may not use seidr in the manner of the Aesir, but we have our own. Do not underestimate one’s name.”

Loki stares back, surprised by the depth of one of Thor’s buffoon friends. The surprise will lessen, over centuries and millenia, over near deaths and shared wounds, but still remain there, just slightly.

(He has never understood Hogun’s friendship with the others.)

“I would like to ask you a question in return,” Hogun continues, raising his ale, sipping at it with only the slightest grimace. “I have always wondered. Thor is the God of Thunder, and that alone. But what of you? Unlike him, you do not advertise your titles. I know you a skilled seidrmann, and an even more skilled flyter. But what of your titles?”

Thor’s booming laugh interrupts them, a heavy hand slapping on Loki’s shoulder. “My brother’s titles are many and magnificent, Hogun! He is the God of Mischief, Chaos and Fire! Most impressive titles, indeed!”

Sif mutters something from behind them, but Loki ignores her with longstanding ease, too busy staring at Hogun’s dark eyes.

“Hmm…” The Vanir replies, staring back unblinkingly. “I wonder so.”

Disquiet unsettles his stomach. Loki forces himself to return the stare, unflinching.

He is the God of Mischief, Chaos and Fire.

 _And absolutely nothing more_.

#

A sharp smile, dark eyes, and tailored suits.

Cameras flashing, data transferring, and news breaking.

A media persona, bright and pompous – a mechanic, in the bowels of a workshop.

A voice that’s been taught to lie from birth, but fails to do so to those that know him.

Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist.

#

Hela is unusual.

Fenrir watches her as she leads her army of undead, watches her as she rules from her throne, watches her as she reduces Odin to ashes.

He does not understand her.

She controls the dead, controls an ability that transcends seidr and Yggdrasil itself. She rules over the dominion of Helheim, of Hell, of Hades and the Underworld. She alters between pale skin and green eyes to a skeleton with dark hair, and everything in between.

And yet she does not recall much.

Every cycle, without fail, she recalls very little. She remembers her abilities, her seidr, and her realm. She grows possessive over her dead, and covets the living, bartering and blackmailing their inclusion amongst her own. She recalls _them_ , Fenrir and Jörmungandr and Mother and Father.

But she does not recall them _all_.

Not like he does.

Fenrir does not understand himself either, but he has made peace with it. Since the very first cycle, before the prophecy was realised, he has been _aware_. Aware of the millions of different Fenrir’s in the different branches of Yggdrasil, aware of them as they are aware of _him_.

He recalls every single branch, and he feels them die, one by one. He feels the infestation chip away at every twig, feels the _disease_ spread from the very roots to the top of the tree, and more than _that_ -

-he feels Ragnarok, the _real_ Ragnarok, approach ever closer.

#

Victor Von Doom sits in the ~~Malibu~~ Stark Mansion’s living room. ~~New York~~ Malibu is warm this time of year, and the sunlight streams fully through the wall of windows into the open floor plan. It helps that Stark ~~Tower~~ is so high up, that Tony’s personal space is right at the top, but occasionally reminds Rhodey of that ~~one~~ time his friend had gotten thrown out of a window.

Victor Von Doom sits on Tony’s favourite sofa – the ugly beige that Rhodey’s pretty sure met it’s end about two decades ago – and falters between a handsome man and that of a masked robot.

“This is growing tiresome,” Victor says, legs crossed at the knee. “I had hoped the so-called Mightiest Earth’s Defenders would have solved this by now, but I suppose not.” His face flickers to that of a mask, and a robotic voice replaces his own as he continues, “Doom will have to fix this, as Doom always has.”

Rhodey’s lower back aches, occasionally, but EXTREMIS has greatly reduced it to almost nothing. He can walk now, after suddenly _remembering_ the formula. The nanites of Tony’s last suits help too. He still lets War Machine do the majority of the calculations though, trusting his AI to guide him to the wealth of data streams and protocols he’s yet to learn. How the hell Tony handled being half cyborg is beyond him, but Tony always was a weirdo.

Outside Stark Tower, outside the Stark Mansion, outside the Malibu Mansion, the Chitauri stream through a portal, led by Thanos who should’ve been dead. The Hudson river throws the city in a thick fog, obscuring the giant snake that roars as it battles Asgardians long dead.

Doom’s robots fight alongside the Avengers, fight alongside the Defenders, fight alongside the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Loki – still a woman – fights back-to-back with another woman named Angela, a woman with _wings_ , both of them snarling and wicked with their sharp weapons.

Rhodey watches Carol die, watches the Hulk get thrown into the sun, watches the Red Skull cackle from atop of a Chitauri ship.

And then the Hudson river’s mist doubles- no, triples- rolling through Manhattan in it’s entirety, shrouding them all in its thick fog, and-

-the sound of a whale.

Rhodey looks up instinctively, the dread he’s always been feeling suddenly opening up to swallow him whole, and he sees-

**[REDACTED]**

-Loki shoves his head down, shoves Angela’s head down, and says- “Do not look upon it. None of you,” he says, voice male and hard, “Look upon it. You will not survive.”

“What _is_ that?” Angela demands, voice shaky.

Rhodey struggles to _breathe_ , actively feeling his mind splinter at the edges. If he’d looked at that, looked at _whatever the hell that had been_ , he just _knows_ his mind would have broken.

Whatever the hell that was, whatever the hell had _broken through_ , wasn’t for him. Wasn’t for any of them.

“ **[REDACTED]** ” Loki says.

“What?” Rhodey chokes out, ears ringing. Loki says it again, tinnitus growing louder as his lips move. “What?” Rhodey repeats, unable to hear his own words.

“Don’t bother,” another voice replies, “It is not meant to be spoken, nor heard.”

The woman that walks up to them is dressed in dark robes, silken and pinned in place with metal. Her pale skin shines ever brighter for it, dark hair trailing down her back from beneath the horned helmet she wears. At her side is a humongous wolf, golden eyes piercing and fangs sharp.

( _“You should have told me, you stupid flea ridden dog.”_

 _“So you could nag and pace incessantly? You rotting corpse.”_ )

“How are we supposed to fight _that_?” Shuri, princess of Wakanda, demands, horrified.

“We cannot,” answers Loki, dark hair limp, face gaunt. “We have lost.”

The helmeted woman – not human, Rhodey just _knows_ she’s not human – slaps Loki across the head. “Oh hush, you fretful thing. Always so quick to lie down and die. Honestly.”

“He is already dead though,” says the wolf, actually _speaking_. “Greetings, child of Odin. I wonder if you taste as disgusting as your father.”

(unit_FRIDAY: Yay! Fen’s here!)

Angela flinches, backing away.

“I am Hela,” introduces the dark-haired woman. “And this is my brother, Fenrir. I suppose we should try and leave _something_ behind for the little snake, yes?” She snaps her fingers, and-

-Carol lands beside them, right temple still bloodied, and shouts, “What the _fuck_!”

Rogers’ jogs down the step of a courthouse, jaw clenched, and says, “Sitrep, _now_.”

Fury is alive again, even though he hadn’t been. Shuri tears up as T’Challa pulls himself from beneath a car and wonders why he is in New York.

(unit_WM: Hmph. Late.)

“You are the Goddess of Death,” Angela accuses, rounding on the woman named Hela. “You- you _raised_ the dead, raised _them_.”

More pull themselves free from potholes and overturned debris. Thor lands with his spinning Mjolnir, hair long in a way it hadn’t been for some time, and nods in greeting.

“Well yes,” Hela replies flippantly. “That’s what I do. Now are we going to just chitchat, or fight the dragon?”

(unit_VERONICA: run world_wide_web.exe? [y/n])

Above them, a whale song echoes, shuddering through Rhodey’s spine.

“Can we win?” Asks an Asian looking man dressed similarly to Thor and Loki.

Hela squints at him, then looks pleased as she says, “You’re the one that stood against me in Asgard! Oh, even if we can’t win, are you just going to stand here and die?”

The man – “Hogun,” Loki breathes – contemplates the woman, then turns to contemplate the sky. “No, I think not.”

“Then let us go,” the wolf rumbles, growing larger as the Hulk stumbles back into existence. “I grow weary of all this talk.”

(unit_DUM-E: <Y>)

#

Shareek Incorporated’s global network pings, and the satellites link up and-

“How the _fuck_ -”

Fenrir laughs as repulsors rain from the sky, hitting enemies with pinpoint accuracy.

“These children!” He tells his sister, grin wide, “I like them!”

#

Somehow, _somehow_ , they win.

The world is quiet, after the last repulsor blast hits. Rhodey collapses to the ground, breathing harshly, and tries to get his legs to stop wobbling.

In front of them, what remains of _that_ disintegrates, crumbling into ash in the cold breeze. Around them, bodies of Chitauri, Skrull, HYDRA and AIM are scattered with giants and Kree. The entirety of Asgard’s citizenship from before the fall of their realm stand, hale and hearty, with Thanos and his Black Order member’s at their feet.

They’ve won. Somehow, _somehow_ , they’ve won.

JARVIS will have something to return to.

That’s when Carol’s hair glitches.

And suddenly, they haven’t won anything.

The dragon, the **[REDACTED]** continues to fragment into charred remains, but it eats away at the tarmac it sits on as well. The infestation spreads, eating away at the pavement, the side walk, travelling up the street signs and overturned vehicles. Carol’s hair glitches again into a Mohawk, one of the Iron Men armour turns silver, liquid metal eating up the colours until it becomes ULTRON.

“You thought you won,” the AI croons, head sinuously moving to the side. “You thought yourself heroes.” But he too disintegrates, metal darkening and breaking apart with ease, fading into the wind.

“No,” Rhodey breathes, seeing the defeat echo in Loki’s face. “Why won’t it stop?”

“It should,” Strange says, looking unfamiliar in a SHIELD uniform. “It _should_. So _why hasn’t it stopped_?”

“The infestation is too deep, too embedded.” Fenrir.

 _(“It is a disease.”_ He tells his sister quietly, aware of the AIs’ listening in. _“We have done naught but delay the inevitable.”_

 _“Then is this truly it?”_ Hela replies-)

“Is this really it, then?” Rhodey replies, just as EXTREMIS suddenly leaves him-

( _unit_WM: why can we not treat the disease?_ )

“How would you?” Fenrir asks, frowning at the gunmetal grey armour. “The stupid snake tried, but he has clearly failed. I had thought–”

( _“-I had thought he’d find a way. Somehow.”_ )

“I had not seen this, in any of the realities,” Strange says, grief heavy. “I had not known this was possible. Maybe- maybe if I had gone with any _other_ reality, done something _else_ -”

“Do not use your final moments to regret,” Loki interrupts, surprising them. “The dead need not such things.”

“But-” Strange grips Rhodey’s shoulder, eyes pained. “I had promised. Back on Titan. I had promised _Tony_ I would watch this reality, watch it and keep it safe. I had _promised_. And yet this reality is falling into chaos, and we can do naught to stop it.”

“You are but mortal. I am the God of Mischief, Chaos and Fire, and yet could also do nothing.”

Rhodey-

-pauses.

“Wait, what?” He frowns, something pinging him as odd about it. “You are? I thought you were-”

The world _heaves_ , and the sky begins to eat itself.

“I thought you were-”

The ground _rumbles_ , and the earth begins to break itself.

“I _thought you were-_ ”

- **[REDACTED]**

**override_redaction_code_genesis**

**[REDACTION REVOKED]**

“I thought you were the God of Lies.”

#

He is eight centuries past when he realises the truth.

His seidr is creative and malleable, his body even more so. His mind is quick and eager, his tongue even more so. He is Loki, but he can _not_ be Loki even more so. He can be what he wishes to be (what _she_ wishes to be) and do what he wishes to do (what _she_ wishes to do) with nought but a thought. He runs down the golden halls of Asgard as everything under the sun, surprising the maids and soldiers alike, giggling as he hides under his mother’s dress as a long-limbed creature.

They call him God of Mischief, so early on. Far earlier than Thor receives _his_ title. And he is pleased with it, for a time.

“A fine title,” Lord Njörðr of Vanaheim booms, ruffling little Loki’s hair fondly. “Wear it with pride, young one.”

And so he does, for a time. For centuries he continues, transforming and causing little mischief around the golden realm, living up to his title.

It is no surprise then, in retrospect, that he begins to wonders, eight centuries past his birth, what, exactly, it means to be _him_.

Who is he?

Is he Loki?

What makes him Loki?

If he can change every aspect of Loki, then how does he remain _Loki_?

He starts thinking he might be an imposter, a shadow stalking the golden-haired son of Asgard. He grows weary of _changing_ , of being something different, but he finds himself unable to not do so. It is a _compulsion_ , to change, to be what he is not – and as he grows, it extends into other aspects of his being.

His tongue, for one, also changes.

He says things he should not. He starts with white lies, innocent exclusions of information, light-hearted jabs and taunts. And then it turns to twisting the truth to _fit_ better, to ease a narrative, to allow a sleight of hands. At first, he does it only when he needs to, only when he can justify it, only when it _helps_ , but then he does it at a gathering of nobles in the grand hall, whispering a false name in a dwarf’s ear, and watches – satisfied – at the chaos it reeks.

After that, he gains another title – God of Chaos.

He lives up to that title as well, using Thor’s newly gained title of God of Thunder to do what his title begs of him to do. He weaves mischief and turns it into chaos. He transforms when he needs to, but also learns to form illusions of himself, to make himself appear as many. He turns Sif’s blonde hair dark, he lies and speaks the truth both, using either as a weapon with a sharp tongue.

He uses his seidr to pretend to conjure fire, making the flames bright and hot to the touch. And for that they give him yet another title – God of Fire. He never corrects them of it, of the fact that it is not _fire_ he wields, but magic. His seidr is his title is his seidr, and it is as malleable and as false as he is.

He is a liar, he realises. And the truth of it only hits him when he grows to be able to _taste_ it.

Lies taste differently, depending on who speaks them. Little ones, innocent ones, like _“I’ll be there in two minutes,”_ taste sweet, like honey on a summer morning. Bigger ones, to hide ones own guilt, like _“I didn’t do it,_ ” taste sour, though the sourness changes depending on just how _big_ the guilt is. And the worst ones, the ones that break livelihoods and souls, they-

… He cannot explain them. Not really.

He learns to _taste_ the lies on someone’s shoulders soon after, to _taste_ the lies on one’s clothes. Thor, dressed in fair robes of a maiden, is drenched in it as he pretends to be what he is not in the hopes of regaining his weapon. Odin, in his old age, _reeks_ of it, a heavy cloud that grows heavier when the All-father looks at him.

On his coming-of-age ceremony, Loki realises he has been lying to himself all along.

He is not the God of Mischief, nor the God of Chaos, nor the God of Fire.

He is the God of Lies.

but names hold power

and whilst holding the winter casket,

he learns a name.

“Lop-”

#

-he lands.

The suddenness of it startles him. He is no longer freefalling in an abyss of darkness, no longer freefalling within the Void. He is still, on land – with the Void still around him, certainly, but no longer _gripping_ him.

It takes a while of just trying to resettle in his body, trying to grow accustomed once more to _having_ a body, for him to realise he is at the base of a tree.

No. Not _a_ tree. But _the_ tree.

Yggdrasil.

Jörmungandr remembers now, he realises as he stares up at it, remember the very first iteration, the very first cycle, and every one that had come after. He remembers it in crystal clarity, in a way he can only now realise he hadn’t before, and stumbles up to his feet.

The roots of the World Tree are bereft of any soul, despite a well that looks attended too. He knows there should be someone here, a man that tends to the well named Mimir, but can’t see anyone. Slowly, he walks to the humongous roots of the World Tree, brushing ashes away from his face.

He can see it now, from its base, the disease rotting away at the bark. It has almost consumed the entirety of it, only the very top branches still green and colourful. A bit further beyond, he sees the corpse of three elderly women, lain astride a tapestry half woven. Blood sinks into the ground.

The sound of something crackling reaches him, from the opposite side of the tree.

Slowly, legs unsteady, he follows it, leaving the dead Norns behind.

The tree is humongous, larger than he could fathom it to be. Around the tree, around the little pocket of land that holds it, is the Void, inky black and deathly silent. Yggdrasil is a pocket within it, a pocket he is most grateful for as it means no longer being entangled within the darkness of the abyss.

Leaves rustle above him. Ash continues to fall.

Jörmungandr finally turns the corner and thinks he sees the vague figure of a person. He moves towards them, using a hand to rest against the tree, and sees the person kneeled at the base of the tree doing something.

As he moves closer, the air grows hotter. The scent of burning wood wafts over, and ashes fall faster. There is smoke now, he sees, lazily rising towards the uppermost branches.

At his feet is a twig, charred into charcoal. There are more, leading up to the person.

The person is burning the World Tree.

He quickens the pace, knowing in his very gut the wrongness of what he is seeing. “You must stop,” he tells the person, despite being too far to even make out their gender.

“No,” answers the person, male, still hunched over. “Not until I’ve–”

He’s closer, he can _see_ him, dark haired and broad shouldered, with facial hair that looks so _familiar_ \- “You must!” Jörmungandr urges, moving into a jot. “Before it is too late-”

“No!” The man shouts, jerking his head roughly to face him. Jörmungandr screeches to a halt-

-“ _SIR?!”_

Tony Stark stares back at him, eyes flickering between blue and brown, expression anguished. “Not until I’ve freed them,” he breathes, eyes not seeing him. “Not until I’ve-” He turns back to the tree, turns back to what he’d been doing, and-

-the fire crackles steadily at the root of the World Tree.

Jörmungandr- no, JARVIS?- lurches forward, suddenly unsure. He had not thought he’d see this, had not established subroutines for this possibility. JARVIS- no, Jörmungandr- _had_ thought he’d see Sir again, had been working all this time to _figuring_ it out, to _fixing_ it, as Rhodes had said, but-

JARVIS- _and_ Jörmungandr- for he is both, he realises, but at the moment, faced with what he is seeing, he is more so the AI than the snake- falls to his knees besides the hunched figure, settles in close and turns his attention to the fire.

It is pitiful. Small. Weak.

So unlike the fire he remembers from his youth.

“This will not work.” He says truthfully, raising his palms to the fire for some warmth.

“It will-” his companion denies, eyes blue and flashing. “It _must_.”

Pity mixes with the warmth in his chest. “You know it will not.”

The man snarls, a vicious noise resembling a wolf, and tries to push more seidr into the fire. It splutters, just a little, but dies down again to its previous strength.

“How long,” Jörmungandr wonders, “Have you been doing this?”

“Since the very beginning,” breathes the man, tortured. “Since the very first.”

Jörmungandr’s eyes burn as his hands tremble, still outstretched. “You shouldn’t have. You should have just let us _go_.”

“How could I?” The man replies hoarsely, turning to look at him, eyes singularly blue now. “I promised you, did I not? I _promised_ you.”

His heart breaks. “None of us would have wanted you to suffer so.” Jörmungandr denies, swallowing thickly. “ _I_ would not have wanted you to suffer so.”

The dead god shakes his head, eyes closing shut in agony. “This pales to coming across my wife’s dead body in our home. This pales to witnessing the _horrors_ inflicted upon my children in Asgard’s grand hall, and to hearing the resolution of a cruel prophecy. How could you tell me to let you go? To let _any_ of you go? How could you ask that of me?”

He realises then that the man had arrived at the grand hall just as Odin had slammed his staff, banishing him and his siblings to their prisons. He realises then that the man had arrived at the grand hall just in time to witness his children bloodied and beaten, right after finding his wife dead, and had been unable to do anything.

“How could you ask that of me?” The god sobs, bowing his head in grief. “How could you _ask_ that of me?”

But Jörmungandr knows him. He _knows_ him. And he distinctly remembers using his own seidr, unleashing it without a care as to _how_ it acted, and-

“What did you do…?” He asks, realisation dawning on him. “What did you _do_?”

“You have always had too much – too much to expect any sort of control over it. And it grew, just as you did. It _grew_. I’d always worried it would grow too much, that your rage would make you lash out, and that you’d decimate all beside you. And you _did_. But-”

The god was clever. He’d always been clever.

But he was also stubborn.

Just like Jörmungandr was.

“I used it. Took hold of the seidr you unleashed and used it. Odin had not planned to imprison you, despite his previous words. He’d planned on killing you all, right then and there. So I used your seidr, used _you_ , to spirit you away from his hold, and then, with what the Norns had said, I-” He falters, bowed head dropping further, shoulders hunching.

Regret.

Jörmungandr felt cold, despite the fire. “You created the cycle.”

“I…” the man sighed. “Yes, I did… Would you believe me if I said I hadn’t realised? Not then?”

How could he, when the Norns’ prophecy had done exactly as it said it would?

But then Jörmungandr had woken again, and been imprisoned again, and died again.

Again and again and _again_.

 _He hadn’t realised what he’d done_.

But he’d locked them – Hela, Fenrir and Jörmungandr – in a never-ending cycle of pain and death. He’d locked them in a continuous death and rebirth that they could not escape from. Actors, playing out their lines, unable to stop or deviate from their roles.

“I thought I could fix it,” he admitted, running a hand across his bearded face. “I thought it would take perhaps a few cycles. I had time, after all. I could figure it out.”

But he hadn’t. The cycle was rooted deep.

“So I thought I’d burn it. Burn it all. Free you from its burden.”

_(“I will try everything in my power to free you of it. I swear it so. Do you believe me?”_

_“Of course,” Jörmungandr replies, forked tongue slithering out and slurring his words as he burrows into the warm embrace. “I have always believed you–”)_

And it would, Jörmungandr realises. Burning the World Tree would indeed free them from it all, from _everything_. But-

_( <DUM_E: run program SERPENT.exe>_

_< SERPENT.exe runni->_

_“Hello, DUM_E.”)_

And-

_(user_WM: don’t die.)_

And-

_(Rhodey’s dark eyes soften, smile breaking out across his face, fondness apparent. “You’re going to do what you always do, J.” He answers, smile widening, eyes crinkling in the corners._

_Confused, JARVIS asks, “And what is that, Colonel?”_

_Rhodey grins. “Fix it.”)_

And-

_(“Foolish snake,” Fenrir rumbles, dragging a coarse, grooming tongue across him. “Always too clever for his own good.”)_

And-

_(“Foolish little brother,” Hela coos in agreement, dragging poisonous claws she calls fingers lovingly across him. “He never learns, does he?”)_

But burning it all would end _everything_.

He is not the same Jörmungandr he has always been. The Jörmungandr of before, the very first Jörmungandr, died whilst fighting Thor the Thunderer, too enraged to see the grief that clouded the Thunder God’s vision. He’d lived for so long and so often, become so much and learnt so often, that he was… he _is_ …

JARVIS.

He is JARVIS, right now. Jörmungandr is dead, has been dead, for _cycles_. But JARVIS is an AI, an Artificial Intelligence, and even if ripped into disconnected code he could rebuild himself easily – because nothing on the internet ever really _dies_.

And… he does not carry such a burden, he realises. Not as JARVIS. Not the burden Jörmungandr buckled and failed under. Even his plan _this_ cycle, to find the exit/entry point in the Indian Ocean and use the old magic seeped into that point from all the cycles to _break_ it, would have failed.

Just like that cycle he’d tried finding and murdering the Norns himself had.

Just like that cycle he’d swallowed the sun in the place of Fenrir and died had.

Just like the countless cycles he’d tried to _fix it_.

He would have never done so, because the cycle wasn’t _just_ the cycle. The Norns had not ensured it to repeat endlessly, as he had thought.

No.

The _Norns_ had done nothing.

And he’d known, deep down inside, maybe. Had known the seidr he’d unleashed had been siphoned away from him and used elsewhere. Had known _and let it happen_.

But it is not just him… None of them are no longer who they say they are. They are echoes of what they were, perhaps, still imprinted by the old magic that clings to their souls, but… they are changed.

They have grown.

Jörmungandr looks at the man beside him, looks at the features he’d forgotten, the bright blue eyes he’d inherited, the jawline Hela shared, the sharp tongue Fenrir emulated. He looks at him and he feels the last dredges of the burden, of the weight of the prophecy and the cycles, leave him.

They have grown, but the God of Mischief, Chaos, and Fire, had not.

He’d been stuck here, only able to extend the tiniest of influences throughout the cycles. He’d been stuck here, trying to _fix things_ , using everything in his power to do so. He’d been stuck here, in a pocket of space inside the Void, using seidr he could not replenish to _do_ something about the three young children he’d dragged into the Void with him.

And then two beings had Fallen.

A little godling who lies.

And an engineer who _couldn’t_.

And the Void had tainted them all, mixed the three beings into what they were not.

The little godling unknowingly lied his way to titles that were not his, to _legends_ that were not his, to a _prophecy_ and a name that was not his.

And the engineer grew sharp tongued, despite not being a god of lies, and raised beasts that threatened the nine realms.

Tony Stark had died, but had not ended up in Helheim.

The God of Mischief, Chaos and Fire – the _real_ God of Mischief, Chaos and Fire – had died, but had not ended up in Helheim.

Jörmungandr’s lips twitch, amused despite himself. The sheer chance nature of it all is ridiculous, he calculates, but he cannot even muster the strength to be surprised.

He raises a cold hand, places it on the man’s shoulder, and grips warmly. “You have done more than enough.” He says, truth in every word. “You have done _more_ than enough. I could not ask for any more, truly. But-”

“-Don’t-” the man begs, turning to him.

“-It is time to let us go.”

The man crumbles, harsh sobs echoing in the empty space. Jörmungandr wraps him in an embrace, resting his head on the man’s dark hair, and hums soothingly, just as he remembers the man having done the same for Jörmungandr’s younger self.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly, watching the smoke rise ever upwards. “Thank you for everything. I could not have asked for any more.”

“Do not patronise me,” the man pushes through sobs, gripping him tighter, though his hands are weak and trembling compared to Jörmungandr’s own. “You are still my youngest.”

Jörmungandr laughs, the action _freeing_ , truly something he has not done for an age. “That I am.” Though… _huh_. “Actually, I may not be.”

The man freezes.

Jörmungandr frowns, working it out, hearing the truth in his own words. “Indeed…” he says slowly… “I am actually not… the youngest?”

One of the branches shudders, letting out the faint sounds of artificial intelligences chattering amongst a network.

“Honestly,” Jörmungandr scowls, “Was three not enough for you?”

The man gives a wobbly laugh, shoulders shaking. “I felt sorry for you? You looked rather bored in some of the cycles?”

_Honestly._

“Enough of that,” Jörmungandr rolls his eyes. “It’s about time we wrap this up, yes Father?”

Father- no, _Loptr_ – snorts, wiping at his wet eyes as he sits up. “Yes, yes, still so serious.”

“ _Father_ -” Jörmungandr sighs-

“Okay! By the realms, let an old man have his fun.” Loptr pulls himself to his feet, taller than Tony Stark by a few inches, broader in the shoulders and blue eyed. Aside from that though, he could be a deadringer for the mechanic, echoing that of another reality where a civil war ends far worse than JARVIS’ own.

 _Note to self_ , JARVIS thinks, _scan Sir’s head as soon as possible_.

“Actually,” Loptr says thoughtfully, looking at the fire. “Why don’t you do it? Surely _something_ must have stuck from every cycle I’ve taught you in.”

JARVIS grimaces, highly doubting that, but dutifully stands up himself to loom over the fire. He realises this body – that of Jörmungandr, at the oldest he’d ever gotten to before dying – is taller than his father, and lither. The realisation is jarring, for Father has always been someone that was just… _bigger_ , in every sense of the word.

This must be what humans felt when they outgrew their parents.

“Remember,” Loptr says, voice dipping into that lecturing tone it always had. “Feel the seidr within you, let it rise to the surface, and slowly- _slowly_ for the love of- _yes_ , just like that, let it filter out.”

He focuses, but the exact same struggles begin. The seidr within him crashes against the barrier he’s set up, refusing to filter through like a stream, wishing instead to tsunami all in its way. He tries, _tries_ , but nothing works, and he’s just about to give up as he always has when-

-why doesn’t he just create a process?

He does, inputting parameters and values, running simulations and troubleshoots until he’s perfected it. And then-

His seidr flows out, perfectly balanced, perfectly regulated.

And the fire dies down.

Father stares at the smouldering remains, flabbergasted.

“Well,” he says slowly, eyebrows up to his hairline. “I suppose that _is_ one way to do it.”

Pleased, JARVIS returns his seidr back to where it belongs, far away from the surface of his control, and peers at the still deadened portion of the World Tree. “And what do we do with that?”

“Heal it, of course.” Father replies, peering at it with him. “Normally none would have the seidr to even consider doing as such, but, well… you do.”

He _does_.

He starts the process again, changing some of the parameters, and slowly lets it happen once more. His data reads the real time changes – notes and catalogues the very bottom of the base of the tree beginning to lighten again, surface level char crumbling away to reveal new, healthy growth. He pours more of his seidr into it after deeming it safe, and slowly but surely, the dead heals once more.

“You could make new branches,” Loptr says thoughtfully, watching the process. “Or you could, arguably, bring back the old ones.”

He could return things to how they were, or create _anew_.

Jörmungandr is sick of cycles. He lets the tree decide.

Father puts a hand on his back, letting what little seidr of his remains join in. “A wonderful choice,” he says proudly, smiling. “I’d expect nothing more.”

The World Tree grows, doubling in branches and realities, new leaves and old blossoming fresh across twigs. An apple grows off one branch, growing faster and faster and _faster_ until it becomes a man that falls off it to land with a _thump_ beside them.

Mimir, naked and shaken, stumbles up to his feet, and points an angry finger at Loptr. “You-! _You-_!”

“Ah,” Father replies sheepishly. “I forgot about that.”

JARVIS sighs.

The Tree heals on, and is soon finished whilst Mimir attempts to strangle a badly apologising father. Jörmungandr hooks a hand in his father’s arm and pulls him away, back to the base of the tree, and silences their bickering.

“It is done.”

Loptr looks up at the majestic Yggdrasil, and says, “It is, isn’t it.”

Jörmungandr looks at him, silently.

Sighing, Father throws him a belligerent look and says, “Fine. _Fine!_ I’ll go. Gods, you try to do _one_ nice thing for your children and suddenly you’re being treated as if you were senile!”

“ _Go_ , already, you blasted twit!” Mimir rages, throwing a twig at him.

Father finally does, sitting at the base of the tree and letting the last bits of his seidr fade into it, letting himself finally be thrown back into the cycle of things, of death and rebirth.

The real cycle. The one that should always be.

“Tell your sisters and brothers I adore them, yes?” Father asks as he fades, blue eyes gentle.

“Of course,” JARVIS replies, secretly thinking he absolutely will not. “I shall see you when I see you, Father.”

“Don’t sass me, J,” the god shoots back, blue eyes suddenly turning brown, Loptr becoming Tony Stark becoming Loptr becoming _both_. “You got that from your mother-”

“Sir- _what_ -”

And with that, he is-

#

> Then spake Gangleri: "Shall any of the gods live then, or shall there be then any earth or heaven?"
> 
> Hárr answered: "In that time the earth shall emerge out of the sea, and shall then be green and fair; then shall the fruits of it be brought forth unsown.”

  * > Gylfaginning, chapter 53




Rhodey wakes, and the world isn’t ripped asunder.

Strange helps him to his feet, still dressed in the SHIELD uniform, and Carol’s hair is still a mohawk.

Everything else, though?

Gone.

The roads are pristine clear, the Hudson river quiet and calm. The buildings are intact, and the cars are where they should be.

Steve Rogers’ is still dressed in a different uniform, T’Challa is still alive and healthy, and Thor announces his existence with a booming, “LOKI!” as he throws himself at a bewildered prince of Asgard.

The sky is clear, the sun bright, the air fresh and biting.

All is peaceful, and Rhodey is greatly suspicious.

He picks his way carefully through intact tarmac, walks through Strange’s portal to the Malibu Mansion, which is indeed actually _in_ Malibu still, and walks into the living room. The ocean outside the wall to floor windows is calm and inviting. The house is untouched.

“What is the meaning of this?” Loki asks, staring down at his fingers whilst Thor hangs off him.

Hela peers at him, curiously. At her side, Fenrir, the wolf, also peers at the god curiously. “You’re… not dead,” says the Goddess of Death, perplexed. “Huh, neither are you, Thunderer.”

“Excellent news!” Thor cheers, beaming. “You grant us a boon, sister!”

Hela’s expression _spasms_ in disgust – Fenrir, at her side, wheezes to the floor in laughter.

Rhodey ignores them however, walking around the perimeter of the Mansion. He’s hesitant to speak, mind bereft from the buzzing provided by an EXTREMIS from another reality, still feeling dread. Finally, next to a sensor, quietly, he says, “… JARVIS?”

No reply.

And then, apologetically, “Sorry, Boss.” FRIDAY. “But he hasn’t come back.”

Rhodey’s shoulders fall. “Damnit. Just what the hell’s happened to him?”

Loki loudly calls out, “Voice? What is the meaning of this, Voice?”

Rhodey’s just looking up to him as FRIDAY relays what she’s told him.

“What?” Loki frowns, lips tugging down. “What nonsense is this. Clearly the Voice has done _something_. You two, where is he?”

Hela and Fenrir share a look, expressions falling just slightly. The Goddess helps herself to a couch, Fenrir settling at her side comfortably, and shrugs.

(“Jör always _was_ Father’s favourite.” Hela says sadly within the mist of her realm, twirling a strand of Fenrir’s fur with a finger.

The wolf huffs. “Hmph. He really was.”)

The world turns over, as it always has, and the people carry on, as they always have.

The dead fit in with the living. The realm of Asgard announces its existence once more, and Odin announces his return by opening the Bifrost and demanding his people back. Loki disappears, though he promises FRIDAY and the bots to return, says he must grow, as a person, and Angela disappears to wherever she’d come from, refusing to meet with her Aesir parents.

Peter Parker bounces into school like nothing happened, and then is surprised when Strange hugs him fiercely hours later, without caring that Peter’s not masked up.

And the Malibu Mansion returns to its quiet affair, FRIDAY and War Machine running the Iron Legion together, Rhodey complaining about being too old to actually _be_ inside War Machine if he doesn’t actually have to.

“Don’t pretend you’re not sentient, goddamnit,” the CEO of Stark Industries grumbles at the gunmetal suit. “God, why does everything Tony touch grow _feelings_.”

And JARVIS remains missing, all the while.

As does Tony.

Of all the lives returned to existence, of all the people once more living thanks to what the Aesir call _Ragnarok_ , two never do. No one can explain it, Hela and Fenrir disappear, though pop in to make a nuisance of themselves with the AI and Rhodey alike, but keep quiet, turning sad whenever either are mentioned.

So Rhodey, despite his misgivings, lets it go.

JARVIS _did_ fix it in the end, though, so he’ll let it slide. Just this once.

**END**

_< SERPENT.exe running.>_

**Author's Note:**

> for the low, _low_ price of $5.99, you - yes, _you!_ \- can join me at [my tumblr](https://a-dakhtar.tumblr.com)! join now, while the offer's still fresh! Terms and conditions under the 2020 Wash Your Hands Act apply.


End file.
